Half 38,900 Care Home Fee Claims Rejected 

By Eilish O'Regan, Irish Independent 

October 7, 2008 

Ireland 

Half the applications for nursing home refunds have been rejected -- including a significant number from people abroad, new figures reveal.

Health Minister Mary Harney yesterday confirmed 38,900 applied for the refunds, which repaid people who were wrongly charged for public nursing home care.

Just 19,300 have been deemed as valid claims, and 3,923 letters of rejection have been sent.

To date, 17,684 have been offered repayments totalling €330m, and 12,756 have received payments worth €260m. The rest will be processed by the end of November.

Ms Harney said there were a variety of reasons for applications being rejected, including cases where the resident died before the December 9, 1998 cut-off point for claims.

The resident may not have lived in the home during the scope of the scheme and duplicate applications were received on behalf of the same persons.

A breakdown of 11,224 of the rejected applications reveals that 726 were from outside Ireland.

There were 2,994 rejections from Dublin and a high number from Cork and Galway.

In a parliamentary response to Fine Gael TD Michael Ring, Ms Harney confirmed that 415 applications were rejected from Tipperary, and 369 from Kerry.

There were rejections of applications in all counties including a small number from Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, in a separate reply on care of the elderly, Ms Harney confirmed an independent evaluation was now under way into the home care packages designed to allow people remain in their own homes.

"My department recently advertised for an independent evaluation by consultants of the Home Care Package Initiative, which is expected to be completed early in 2009," she said.

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