Older People's Minister 'not happy' 80% of nursing homes are privately run, Dáil committee hears

Older People's Minister Mary Butler: 'I am not happy that when I came into the system that 80% of beds for older people were in the private sector.' Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins

Older People's Minister Mary Butler has said she is "not happy" that 80% of nursing homes are run by private businesses, while defending the pace of reforms for homecare funding.

Families in Kerry affected by the controversy in children’s mental health and elderly farmers in need of nursing home funding were also discussed during a sometimes tense session of the Oireachtas health committee, as part of the Health (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No. 2) Bill 2024 on Wednesday.

Ms Butler said: “I am not happy that when I came into the system that 80% of beds for older people were in the private sector" but she is “trying slowly to change the narrative within the department and the HSE that we have to build more capacity in the public sector and give people options".

There are 117 community nursing hospitals/units and she has plans to add beds to those. The broadening of renovations to meet Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) standards to include adding bed capacity up to 84 beds in some cases is one solution being considered, she said.

“I want every unit to have a dementia facility included as standard now, a lot of them have it but not all of them do,” she said.

Social Democrats’ Róisín Shortall said people were being “funneled” into nursing homes due to the lack of statutory homecare funding, under discussion now since 2018.

Ms Butler said a key stumbling block to “complex legislation” was how people would be asked to contribute, saying the Fair Deal funding process could not be simply transferred across.

Kerry Camhs redress scheme

The committee also heard families in South Kerry, whose children were affected by misprescribing through the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) could receive financial support through a redress scheme.

However, Sinn Féin TD for Kerry Pa Daly asked the minister why families in North Kerry were unable to access this, despite receiving an apology from the HSE on similar issues. Some assessments needed on their children cost up to €3,500, he said.

Ms Butler said a look-back review remains under way in North Kerry. Adding people to the redress scheme could not be done until she had the results of this audit, which was due "very, very soon".

She said she was aware 200 families of the 240 children affected in South Kerry were in the redress scheme.

The minister also rejected concerns farmers were getting preferential treatment under changes to the Fair Deal as they were unfairly treated originally.

In one example, she is aware of three elderly farmers in her Waterford constituency who could not apply for Fair Deal so were unable to go into a nursing home. This was because they could not appoint a successor — as their closest relatives were also elderly — as is required.

Under proposed changes, a successor could be a grandnephew or grandniece, first cousin, including second or third cousin, among other additions, she said.

This was supported by a number of committee members aware of similar cases, with Denis Naughten saying it was particularly an issue for farmers without children.

Ms Butler also raised other proposed changes such as giving the Hiqa inspectors the legal right to enter unregistered premises. Any nursing home whose registration is removed would only have 14 days to appeal this rather than the 28 in place currently, she said.