Charities concerned at Fair Deal changes
Groups want safeguards for nursing home residents
STRONGER safeguards are needed to protect nursing home residents against financial abuse if they are given more money under the Fair Deal Scheme, advocacy groups have told an Oireachtas committee.
The scheme is a financial support mechanism that helps pay for the cost of staying in a nursing home, and it is managed by the HSE.
As it stands, 80% of a person’s income goes towards helping to pay for their care in a nursing home. Last month, the Cabinet agreed to allow people receiving care through the scheme to keep 60% of their rental income to incentivise them putting property on the market.
The Government estimates this move – for which legislation is currently in development – could free up 8,000 homes to rent.
However, speaking before the Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Mary Murphy of Age Action said: ‘We have concerns about this proposal. The older person must have choice and control throughout the process and a package of safeguards is needed.
‘The Assisted Decision Making Capacity Act 2015 needs to be implemented in full, including for the new decision support service to be fully operational. Anyone with impaired decision-making capacities needs to be assisted with making a decision about renting out their home rather than having someone else make it instead.
‘We also need safeguards to prevent abuse such as family members or others pushing an older person to rent out their homes or pocketing the rental income.’ Between January 2019 and June 2021, Age Action said, the charity received over 100 calls about financial abuse of older persons.
Celine Clarke, head of advocacy and communications at Age Action, said the group has put together a package of safeguarding measures that would help protect older persons. She added: ‘One of those would be safeguarding legislation for adults which would fall outside of the Assisted Decision Making Act, and the other is a change to the coercive control legislation.
‘That’s where you would see issues to do with maybe pressure from a nephew, from the neighbour or from the community for a person to leave their home.’
Seán Moynihan, chief of the Alone charity for the elderly, said there has been a lot of focus on the changes to the Fair Deal Scheme but that it may not produce the results people want.
He added: ‘There are disputes on how many houses are available and it could be as low as 4,000 and they are not in places people want.’
Mr Moynihan said the average person lives in a nursing home for 2.9 years and once they go in, someone has to clear the house and get it up to standard so it can be rented out while dealing with tenancy law.
After that it will have to be handed over to be managed ‘because that’s not something you can probably do from a nursing home’. He added: ‘When people die, unfortunately, that housing comes back into the stock. So the housing is going to come back into the stock anyway.’
Speaking to the committee, Fiona Larthwell, from the Department of Health, said one of the safeguards that should be in place to protect older persons is the Assistant Decision Making Capacity Act, which is due to commence next month.
She added: ‘We don’t want to make people think that we’re trying to take their houses off them.
‘So we have to do this in a very careful, considerate manner that is respectful of the residents.’
‘We need safeguard to prevent abuse’