For more than 30 years, the State and successive governments have ripped off hundreds and thousands of elderly citizens and their families by unlawfully charging them for nursing home care. Despite consistent, repeated legal advice that those charges were illegal, the Government continued to force vulnerable people to pay up. This created real financial hardship and pushed many into poverty as they struggled to afford the charges.

At the weekend, we discovered in the Mail on Sunday that successive governments to this very day operate a secret, calculated legal strategy to stop those who are illegally charged from getting their money back. That was last night confirmed by a Government spokesperson. Instead of the State and the Government owning up to this horrendous treatment of elderly citizens, successive governments have pursued a heartless legal and political strategy, one designed by governments to draw out cases they knew they could not win, to exhaust people's ability to fund their legal challenges and then to settle for significantly reduced awards, all the while keeping things hush-hush. Governments did this knowing it would hit the least well-off families the hardest. We are talking about people forced to work beyond retirement to pay for their parents' nursing home fees. We are talking about pensioners left with a weekly pittance on which to live after paying the charges for loved ones' care. We are talking about families fearing they would go without food, clothes and the basic necessities after forking out these fees. Life savings and pensions have been wiped out, homes sold and elderly people pushed to the breadline, all in a desperate scramble to pay charges that were illegal and the Government knew to be illegal. Then there is the biggest scandal of all - a carefully designed, reviewed plan to prevent these people from getting their money back. That is the reality of this scandal, yet government after government persisted.

The Taoiseach has claimed this is complex. There is nothing complex about the Government ripping off elderly people. There is nothing complex about devising a legal and political strategy to cover your tracks. The truth is that this heartless strategy has been agreed and renewed by every Government and Minister for Health, including the Taoiseach, up to the present day.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach went on the radio. He claimed he was never party to devising or agreeing this legal strategy and tried to distance himself from it, but that is not true. A memo from 5 May 2016, also published, states clearly that the strategy was agreed and overseen by the Minister, which was the current Taoiseach. Is that not the case? Not alone did he know about it, but his colleagues, the Minister, Deputy Harris, the Minister, Deputy McEntee, and the now Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, knew about it. Let us not play games.

Dúirt an Taoiseach nár aontaigh sé leis an straitéis seo. É sin ráite, is léir gur lean gach Aire Sláinte, le blianta beaga anuas, an Teachta Varadkar san áireamh, leis an straitéis seo chun bac a chur ar na daoine sin a gcuid airgid a fháil ar ais.

Does the Taoiseach still claim he knew nothing of this strategy? Does he still claim that colleagues in government knew nothing of it? It is clear to me that all documentation and correspondence relating to this secret legal strategy must now be published. Will the Taoiseach commit to that?

This is an historic issue that dates back to the 1970s. I do not know the full facts of it and I doubt that anyone else does. The Minister for Health has sought advice from the Attorney General and a detailed written briefing from his officials. The Attorney General is also preparing a report for Cabinet for next Tuesday, which we will publish thereafter. Until such a time as we receive those detailed written briefings, there is a limited amount we can say on the matter because we need to establish the facts, although the Deputy seems to know them all already. Once the facts have been established this will be subject to statements in the House and it would also be appropriate for Department of Health officials to make a presentation to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health. It has been confirmed that the policy and legal approach predated July 2011 and has been followed since then. Successive Attorneys General and Ministers in multiple Governments, and senior officials in the Department of Health, would have considered the matter and it would appear that they advised in a consistent manner on the issue.

This matter has been grossly misrepresented, including by the Deputy just now in a very irresponsible way. The Deputy's claim that people in private nursing homes were illegally charged is not correct and her claim that this was confirmed by a Government spokesperson last night was just made up. The strategy was to defend the cases relating to private nursing homes on several grounds, in particular that medical card holders did not have an entitlement to free private nursing home care. It was never the policy of the Government nor the intention of the Oireachtas to create such an entitlement. Even today people with medical cards, for one reason or another, either choose or are forced to avail of private healthcare and social care; they do not get a refund, not even now. A limited number of individual cases were settled over the course of ten years, where there were complicating factors. No case ever proceeded to a hearing and if it had, the State would have defended its position and had bona fide defences prepared.

In the case of public nursing home charges, a scheme was put in place that was widely publicised and €485 million was paid to former residents and their families. This sum was considerably less than the estimate of €5 billion put on the potential liability in 2011 by the Department of Health. It was made clear at the time that this would not extend to people who were in private nursing homes. I want to reassure the House that this is not a current issue that impacts any current nursing home residents or any residents in recent years. Since 2009 the nursing home support scheme, the fair deal, has provided a legal basis for individuals to make contributions towards their public or private nursing home costs.

On my role, in 2011 I was Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. I was Minister for Health from the summer of 2014 to the summer of 2016, which was six to eight years ago. I must have been briefed on it. The Ministers who went before and after me were briefed on it so I must have been as well but I cannot tell the Deputy when, by whom, in what depth or detail or whether it was written or verbal. Until I have access to documents from that period I cannot answer that question definitively and I do not have any access to documents from that period, but I have sought them. What I can say is that the policy and strategy was devised and agreed prior to my becoming Minister for Health. I do not know if I was specifically asked to sign off on it being continued but if I had been asked I would have. This was a sound policy approach and a legitimate legal strategy by the Government at the time, by previous Governments and by Governments since. All Ministers, from 2005 onwards, at all times acted in good faith, in the public interest, in accordance with official advice and in accordance with legal advice from the Attorney General, and that is exactly how they should act.

In fact the Taoiseach acted in bad faith, as did his colleagues, his predecessors and, it seems, his successors. The Taoiseach has confirmed to the House that he was wrong yesterday, that he knew about this strategy and that he had been briefed.

Can he confirm that other members of the Government - the Ministers, Deputies Simon Harris and Helen McEntee, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin - were similarly aware of this strategy and were briefed?

Will the Taoiseach also respond to my other question on the publication of all of the documentation surrounding these issues? These documents need to be published as a matter of urgency and publicly scrutinised.

On the issue of who was briefed, were the Ministers, Deputies Harris and McEntee, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, briefed? Was anybody else briefed? Who did the initial memorandum go to in 2011? The Taoiseach stated yesterday that he believed it was to four people. Can he identify who they were and can he confirm that all documentation will, in fact, be published?

I cannot confirm who was or was not briefed over that period. I am sure individuals will do that as they can, based on their recollections.

In relation to documents, we are assembling those documents now in the Attorney General's office and the Department of Health. I have not seen them. I have seen one or two but certainly not all of them. When we have assembled them all we will put any that we can into the public domain. That will be the right thing to do. We will not do it in a drip-drip fashion, which is what is happening in the newspapers at the moment. In my view, that is creating a false impression.

The allegation here is very clear. It is that four or five Governments, four or five Attorneys General, any number of Ministers and former Ministers, some of whom are now in the Government and some in the Opposition, and dozens of officials all conspired to deny people refunds to which they were entitled. That is as far-fetched as it sounds. It is not what happened.

I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach has indicated that the report to Cabinet next week will be published - that is a good thing - and that he has agreed with my proposal that the Joint Committee on Health be fully briefed by the Secretary General. It would also be helpful if there were people there from the legal section in the Department.

In 2005, when the Travers report into illegal charging for nursing home care was published, it blamed "systematic maladministration" in the Department of Health. The report detailed how an illegal charging regime had persisted for nearly three decades and stated that there were shortcomings at political level in "not probing and questioning" this charging regime. At the time, the current Tánaiste, Deputy Micheál Martin, was Minister for Health and Children. He maintained he had never been briefed on the issue, a contention that was hotly disputed by the then Secretary General, Mr. Michael Kelly.

Fast forward 18 years and it appears we are again being told that Ministers failed to question or probe this issue. We are told a briefing note in 2016 stated, "it has been agreed by the Minister and the AGO [Attorney General’s office] that settlements are made within the range of 40% to 60% of the capital value of the claim and on the best terms possible." The Taoiseach was the Minister who was briefed at the time that note was prepared. Yesterday, on "The Pat Kenny Show", the Taoiseach was quite categoric, stating he was never party to devising or agreeing a legal strategy in relation to nursing home charges. That was not the claim. The claim was that the Taoiseach went along with it. I take it from what he is saying today that he accepts that he went along with this strategy.

On Newstalk yesterday, the Taoiseach also said the State has always disputed any liability when people were placed in private nursing homes. This may have been the public position but was that really the case behind the scenes? The legal strategy suggests it was not that clear-cut. It stated that cases should be settled as soon as discovery was sought. In 2017, we are told, a briefing document that was provided to then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and then Minister of State at the Department of Health with responsibility for older people, Deputy McEntee, stated: "Discovery would carry very significant risks and should therefore be avoided." The implication of that seems clear. There were clearly documents within the Department that could expose the State to liability if they were made public.

The Government has now conceded that the legal strategy revealed by the Mail on Sunday does, in fact, exist but it said it predates 2011. That was the statement from the Government last night. Can the Taoiseach tell us when this strategy was first devised? Does he accept he was made aware of it?

When was he made aware of it? A more significant issue for all of the Ministers during that period is whether the Taoiseach or any of those Ministers ever questioned this legal strategy to determine if it was fair and if people were unfairly penalised for being denied access to nursing home care.

As I mentioned, the Attorney General has been asked to prepare a report on the matter for Cabinet next week and that report will be published. There will also be statements in the Dáil next week. As I think the Deputy acknowledged on the radio this morning, it is reasonable that Ministers should have a bit of time to put all of the documents together because this goes back a long way. There have been no new cases in over ten years, although many have been settled more recently. As the Deputy suggested earlier, this is something I am sure the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health will want to look into.

As I mentioned in terms of my own role, I was Minister for Health from 2014 to 2016, which is six to eight years ago. I must have been briefed on the matter. Ministers before and after me were briefed, as were the junior Ministers, but I cannot tell the Deputy when or by whom, in what depth or in what detail or whether it was written or verbal. Hopefully, I will be able to find that out when documents are gone through in the Department of Health.

The policy and strategy were derived and agreed prior to my becoming Minister for Health. I do not specifically know if I was asked to sign off on continuing them but, as I said, if I was asked, I would have done so because this is a sound policy approach and a legitimate legal strategy by government. I would ask what the alternative was to this policy approach and legal strategy. The alternative would have been to open up the scheme to people who had attended private nursing homes, even though we did not believe they had a legal entitlement to any refunds. That would not have been right. Governments have a duty to protect the taxpayer. They also have a duty to protect the health budget and make sure it is spent on healthcare and not on refunds. We also have a duty to be fair to people and to be just, and I acknowledge that. It is very clear, however, that the State had strong defences in regard to this and that people who had medical cards, just as now, are not entitled to refunds for private care.

Is the issue not that successive governments penalised medical card holders who needed nursing home care? That was the question I asked earlier. Throughout that entire period of 30 years, did no Minister ever say, "Hang on, why are we not providing medical card patients with proper care when they need it?". Does the Taoiseach accept that fundamental to this entire issue is the fact that there is no legal entitlement to public healthcare? We talk about, and have always talked about, eligibility for care even though in many cases that care is not provided. Is it not the fundamental issue that there is no legal entitlement to public healthcare in this country, irrespective of a person's circumstances? There is no legal entitlement in the way in which there is a legal entitlement to social welfare. Is it not time we addressed that issue?

That is a fair point and what the Deputy says is true. There is no universal legal entitlement to public healthcare or social care in Ireland and there was not at the time-----

There still is not.

There was no legal entitlement to charge.

There was no legal entitlement there and people who claim there was are incorrect. Things were changed in 2009, long before I was a Minister - I was in opposition, in fact - when the fair deal scheme was brought in. Certainly by the time the Government was formed in 2011 and by the time the fair deal scheme was set up in 2009, there was a scheme in place to provide nursing home care on a universal basis to people. There was also a compensation scheme that was established by the previous Government and its Minister for Health, Mary Harney. That compensation scheme was put in place for people who attended public nursing homes. This matter relates to people who attended private nursing homes and the view of the State was that their medical card did not give them an entitlement to refunds for private care, just as it does not do so now. Even if it had, it would not have been a case of just going to the nursing home of their choice and then asking the Government to pick up the bill. There would have had to have been some scheme in place. That is the defence the State had.

It was because of a failure to provide public nursing home care.