Can the Tánaiste explain to the public why successive Fianna Fáil- and Fine Gael-led Governments, including many he was a part of, have pursued a systematic strategy over many years of denying rights and entitlements to vulnerable people and to people who have been wronged by the State, often pursuing a very hostile, cynical legal strategy to deny people their rights? Vulnerable people in long-term residential care with disabilities were denied their disability allowances; before that we had women affected by CervicalCheck and scandals subjected to a very hostile legal strategy. Last night, we had the Government yet again excluding tens of thousands of mothers and children who were victims of the abuse by church and State in mother and baby homes, arbitrarily and unjustifiably excluded from the redress scheme. Then, of course, there is the scandal of the nursing homes fees wrongly levied on vulnerable, often elderly, unwell people. The Government has fought them every step of the way, legally and otherwise, to deny them their rights and entitlements and has used legal strategies to prevent them from getting those entitlements and to hush them up in instances where it was forced, because of legal action, to acknowledge the refunds to which they were entitled. I ask the Tánaiste this very particularly as he was Minister for Health between 2000 and 2004. In that year, the Report on Nursing Home Subventions was laid before him containing 70 pages detailing how successive Governments knew that the fees being charged in nursing homes were illegal, that there was no legal basis for them-----

What year was that?

2001. By the way the report also found, and this is important, that people who had gone to private nursing homes were, in fact, entitled to public nursing home care but none were available to them and they were forced into the private system. The Tánaiste is still saying these people were not entitled to this care when that report made it clear that they were. Another report in 2003 by the Human Rights Commission said the same thing. There was another report in 2010 by the Ombudsman, entitled Who Cares?, while the Tánaiste was Minister in the Government. Where was his moral compass when it came to acknowledging the rights and entitlements of vulnerable people? How could he treat people in that disgusting fashion?

I disagree with the Deputy's narrative and assertion in terms of the past 30 years and the 30 years before that. If we go back over the past 25 years, right through it, there were quite a significant number of redress schemes. One of my first decisions was to launch the very first investigation into the role of church and State in the industrial schools. This was the first time it was ever done and we had a very extensive redress scheme in the aftermath of the commission on institutional abuse in our industrial schools. I think at the time I raised more than €1 billion in redress payments. I was the first to do the investigation into the Ferns diocese and, subsequently, other Ministers did the Dublin archdiocese commission of investigation, the Cloyne report. The point is that the past 25 to 30 years has been about revelations about the 20th century in Ireland and, in many instances, significant redress schemes were initiated. That is the reality. I have only just said earlier that in the past two and a half years alone, the Government has decided to commit itself to retrospective payments on a range of issues totalling close to €6 billion. I am not counting all the various redress schemes over the past ten or 20 years.

The fundamental issue with nursing home charges and the disability allowance was actually that the policy was transparent for well over 30 years. It was very transparent in that contributions were taken in full sight from people in residential settings, from their pensions and so on. It transpired that the regulations that gave effect to that were not consistent with the primary Act in respect of public nursing home charges. That is what the 2005 Supreme Court decision conclusively decided on public health charges. A redress scheme of close to €500 million was initiated and paid back. In terms of the medical card patients in private nursing homes, it was never accepted by the Oireachtas or the Government that they were entitled to the entirety of payments in respect of the cost of private nursing homes. Subventions at that stage were the order of the day. In fact, the fair deal scheme, which ultimately dealt with the issue in terms of a legislative template, to this day continues the principle of people making a contribution to both public and private healthcare. The same applies in Northern Ireland in respect of disability allowance. As I have said, right now there are 30 sensitive cases that the Government will be alerted to, all of them with significant cost implications for the State. The ultimate challenge is, which we have to make a call on - every Government will in its day - whether the current generation keeps on paying for historic wrongs or whether we concentrate and focus on the needs, which are very real today, right across the board in social services and social work.

Did the Tánaiste read this report in 2001? It made very clear that successive Governments, including the one he was part of, knew that the basis on which these charges were being levied had no legal basis. He has gone on to repeat what the Taoiseach said earlier this week about the State still not conceding that people who were in private nursing homes but had medical cards had the right to have the fees paid. The Ombudsman report I am referring to noted in 2001, when the Tánaiste was the Minister for Health: "The health boards appear to be directing such patients and their families towards private care without in anyway acknowledging the boards' own responsibilities in this area." People were being forced into private nursing homes because the State had failed to provide them the public nursing home care they were entitled to and the Tánaiste knew this. He knew the charges that were being levied had no legal basis long before courts made decisions on it and he did nothing about it. Vulnerable people had to fight and face hostile legal strategies. It is immoral.

The Deputy is wrong in his assertion in terms of the legal advice on nursing home charges. In respect of medical card patients, access to the entirety of their costs in private nursing homes was never conceded. Budgets are going up incrementally and exponentially year after year in terms of an ageing population. By the way, we still have that challenge today but no one wants to pay for it.

All this money is not my money nor the Deputy's, it is the taxpayers' money. We are all birds of passage here, but the Deputy wants 100% retrospection for everything-----

All those pensioners were taxpayers too.

I have no doubt, if we reveal all the legal strategies and all the legal cases that are before the State at the moment, I know what the Deputy's response would be: "pay it all out." He is asking current taxpayers to do all that. These are not popular decisions-----

There was €64 billion for the banks but not for the pensioners.

Please, Deputy.

The Government and the Executive are there for a reason from time to time. We can be judged rightly or wrongly and I accept that. We must, though, have an honest debate about this as well in terms of how far back we go, how much do we pay in terms of the wrongs of the 20th century-----

There was no problem finding money for the banks.

Whereas today-----

No problem at all.

-----we have real issues. We have an aging and expanding population for which we need resources. We need to advance social care and do better in many respects. This is the call we had to make.

They had legal entitlements.

We are over time-----

It is shameful. They had legal entitlements.

Táimid ag bogadh ar aghaidh anois chuig an Teachta Canney.