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THE ATTORNEY GENERAL is due to provide a report to Cabinet today on a legal strategy in relation to people who were entitled to nursing home care provided by the State decades ago.
It comes after the Irish Mail on Sunday last month reported a whistle-blower’s claims of a secret government strategy to limit pay-outs to people on medical cards – who would have been entitled to nursing home care provided by the State – by settling cases out of court.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has argued that coverage of the strategy has been misrepresented and related to residents in private nursing homes rather all public residents.
Speaking in the Dáil on Wednesday last week, Varadkar said that he had not been the Health Minister involved in agreeing the legal strategy and that it had been previously agreed in 2014.
It comes after a Government spokesperson on Tuesday said that Varadkar had not renewed the agreement, following correspondence between the Department of Health and the Department of an Taoiseach.
“It is the clear understanding of the Unit that this does not refer to Minister Varadkar, as was, but refers to a previous Minister, as this decision in relation to the range of settlements was apparently made well before his time,” the spokesperson said.
Varadkar said on Tuesday that he was unaware if he had been asked to sign off on a continuation of the policy while he was Health Minister, but said that he would have.
“I don’t specifically know if I was asked to sign off on it being continued but if I had been asked deputy, I would have,” Varadkar said, in response to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald.
“This was a sound policy approach and a legitimate legal strategy by the government at the time.
“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’s exactly how they should act.”
Varadkar said that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly had sought advice from the Attorney General as well as a briefing from Department officials.
He added that the Attorney General would be providing a report for Cabinet today on the legal strategy, which would be published afterwards.
With reporting by Eoghan Dalton and Press Association
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Can we please stop propagating the lies of the English media? Brexit did the damage, not the protocol.
@James Pelow: Very well said. They’re actually using it as a distraction. And it’s drawing us into something that has nothing to do with us. Brexit is the problem. End of story.
You can’t hold a poll asking people if they think the Protocol is good for Northern Ireland without clarifying what the alternative is.
That’s like asking a child if they think the settlement that their parents agreed to after divorce is good.
Let’s be clear… article 16 does not end the protocol. It can suspend a part of it for a short period of time. When the UK says it will trigger A16, call it out for what they want to do….they want to scrap it and force a border on the island of Ireland or a border between Ireland and EU. That’s their plan and I believe it’s been the plan all along. This mess has been made by the UK and the protocol is a plaster. The GB companies that send those goods that will never end up back in the EU (including ROI) need to be better catered for. The issue is that there is no trust between the UK and EU as, so far, the UK hasn’t implemented main parts of the protocol so all at risk goods must be considered guilty until proven innocent.
Ok theJournal…. Time to correct your headlines… “Is Brexit bad or good for firms in Northern Ireland?”
The protocol is a workaround to the main issue, Brexit..
While I’ve no doubt it has caused some legitimate disruption for businesses heavily linked to GB, how did the study take into account costs (for consultancy etc) that would’ve been incurred without the procotol because they also trade with the EU?
Or how did it take into account all the paperwork NI businesses save because they can trade with the Republic and the rest of the EU freely?
All these analyses seem to assume that trade with Ireland was either insignificant, or its continuity was a a given (neither of these are true) and that any disruption with GB is a cost without any quantifiable benefit (again not true).
It’s not the protocol that’s not working. It’s brexit that’s not working.
How dare the EU break away from the United Kingdom. They’ve made things very difficult for everyone, especially the Brits!
By leaving the CU and SM and going for a Sharia Brexit GB turned itself into a legal and regulatory Kaliningrad. Their call-their choice…If they hadn’t CHOSEN that there would be no protocol. They want a hard border in IRL or IRL out the the EU-they will get neither but what they will get is humiliation.
It is improving trade between north and south.
have your say