# Participants in the Fair Deal Scheme should be obliged to rent out their houses



## Brendan Burgess

The Fair Deal Scheme needs to be completely reviewed in the light of the shortage of housing.

In all of the cases I have come across the elderly person's home has been left empty as there is no incentive to rent it.

A case yesterday really brought it home to me.  A woman with a family home in Dublin worth €700k which would easily command a rent of about €3,500  a month is lying idle.

She has an income of about €40,000 a year.  So the state is paying about €40,000 a year, and will reclaim €21,000 a year from the eventual sale of the house.  Her two sons will inherit the house - and as it happens neither need the money.

As far as I am concerned, she can easily afford to pay in full for her care. There is no reason at all why I should be paying for it through my taxes so that her two sons can inherit more.

If they rent the house, she would have a gross income of €80,000 a year.

This is enough to pay her nursing home fees in full.

She gets full tax relief on the €80,000 nursing home fees, so I am subsidising that anyway.

The two sons would still get the house free of CGT and free of CAT.

Of course, if the two sons and the mother want to leave the house empty, they are quite entitled to do that, but then they should pay the nursing home fees themselves. 

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

While the sons argue that there is no incentive to rent out the house, I think that there is. 

If she rents out the house, they would not be using up the 7.5% contribution from the value of the home. 

Having said that,  most people actually don't see it like this, and don't rent out the house. 

So whether the incentive is there or not, it should be an absolute requirement- if they choose not to rent out the house, then they should not get any assistance towards nursing home fees. 

Brendan


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## Westgolf

Hi Brendan.

Just one point on the above. Often enough the nursing home issue crystalizes when a son or daughter is told that their parent needs to move into such an environment. Cue search for place, visits, trying to cope with preparing mum or dad for the change etc. With all that goes on, trying to complete fair deal application etc the actual property can be a bit of a back burner issue. Surely the fair deal system needs to be streamlined in such a way that, in the above scenario, once the parent is settled in and the son or daughter can get a chance to sort practical issues that any rental income could be brought into the system as an update to the finances. Thus the person would have been looked after and their cost of care to the state would be reflective of the rental capacity of the property.


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi Westgolf 

Maybe then impute a rent of 10% of the value of the house.  So that if they choose not to rent it or can't get around to it, they don't lose the Fair Deal Scheme, but they just get less.

It would be in their interest to get it rented as soon as possible. 

And exclude any such Fair Deal tenancies from the RTB and other obligations.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

OK, so in many cases, there would be no incentive to rent 


So in case the borrower's income increases by €3k. 

By making the fair deal scheme dependent on renting out the property, the cost to the taxpayer is less which means that more people could be helped and a lot of houses would be supplied again.

The current situation is as if we had shortages of food in Ireland and we were paying some farmers not to produce food.

Brendan


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## Clamball

My mother in law's house lies empty.  While her mental health deteoriates so did the house.  Now she is in a nursing home, no one has power of attorney and nothing can be done without agreement between all the adult children.  Once there is more than one adult child that becomes almost impossible.  €10 k would probably get the house into OK condition to rent, but it won't happen, due to the lack of clarity of getting that back from the estate once the MIL dies.

To ensure homes can be rented then the ill parent needs to give power of attorney to some one while they can.  Then some of her savings could be used to rent out the house, she would have an income and a family would have housing.


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## Brendan Burgess

Interesting points

Who is paying for the nursing home? 

Brendan


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## PMU

Brendan Burgess said:


> The Fair Deal Scheme needs to be completely reviewed in the light of the shortage of housing.


Why? The Fair Deal scheme is concerned with the provision of financial support for those with long term nursing home care needs. These needs have no correlation with the market for housing.

It's always reasonable to assess if the Fair Deal is being reasonably financed, but this does not appear to be a problem at present, as according to today's Indo, the government is to review the scheme to reduce the cost of nursing home care for farmers and small businesses.
http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/farmers-dont-want-special-treatment-from-fair-deal-36024806.html.

It would be most unreasonable if pensioners, i.e. those on fixed incomes, were forced to rent out their homes to make up any shortfall in Fair Deal funding if those in the farming and enterprise sectors get a special deal.


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi PMU

Is there any reason at all for you to pay my father's nursing home care needs?  I really don't  see why, if he can pay for them himself. 

Certainly the state should not set up a scheme which encourages good houses to be taken out of use.

Brendan


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## Westgolf

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Westgolf
> 
> Maybe then impute a rent of 10% of the value of the house.  So that if they choose not to rent it or can't get around to it, they don't lose the Fair Deal Scheme, but they just get less.
> 
> It would be in their interest to get it rented as soon as possible.
> 
> And exclude any such Fair Deal tenancies from the RTB and other obligations.
> 
> Brendan


Good point but broaden it to allow for those properties in good rental areas which may bring in more than others.


Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi PMU
> 
> Certainly the state should not set up a scheme which encourages good houses to be taken out of use.
> 
> Brendan


Agreed, but a by product of the bureaucratic mess that is the fair deal scheme is the vacant properties arising because son or daughter is trying to finalize matters for parent and is so stressed and concerned that approval may be withdrawn.

Time for a complete modernization of the whole scheme.


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## noproblem

I can see the sense of renting out the houses as outlined thus making a house available to someone who needs same. However these particular houses won't help those who are homeless unless the state once again decides they'll cover most of the cost. Also, this type of house at €3,500k per month is aimed at an elite part of society. Who says the houses that people own and are left idle will be suitable for those who are in need? Do we not already have many, many, houses left idle but people who need them say the accomodation isn't suitable for them because of a variety of reasons. If people who need housing and are almost permanently on the social keep refusing what they're offered, then there has to be consequences. Too much softness and too many goody goody organisations making this country a bit of a laugh for the working man and woman. Time for politicians to take tough stances on issues instead of trying to steal the limelight by saying they're going to hand out lucky bags to every Tom, Dick and Mary.
By the way Brendan, I agree totally with renting out those houses and also believe goverments/lawmakers need to bring in laws to make this happen.


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi noproblem 

It's not just people on social welfare. The lack of houses affects everyone. 

If the supply of housing is increased, it will help people at all levels. 

So if a house at €3,500 per month becomes available, the person taking that may be vacating a house at €2,000 a month and so on.

Brendan


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## Andarma

Being a landlord is no bed of roses, as can be seen from many many threads in this forum. I am a landord myself. My siblings and I are also getting to grips with a parent requiring nursing home care, dealing with the solicitors re ward of court, and the infamous fair deal scheme. Our parent was seemingly fit and active, but had a sudden catastrophic stroke leaving them permanently incapacitated. Obliging us/one of us to become a landlord on top of everything else would be intolerable. The house would require a massive investment to bring it up to scratch for renting purposes; I suspect that this would be the case with a lot of properties owned by people in nursing homes. So, where would you draw the line?


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi Andarma 

Again, why should I pay for your parent's nursing home care? Or why should you pay for mine? 

There should be an imputed rent.  And if you don't collect it, then you pay for the nursing home yourselves. 

In your particular case, it may make sense to sell the house.

Brendan


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## Andarma

You have to remember that not everyone has a house that is worth a lot of money and is in a desirable renting location. In our case, the house is worth less than €50k and would be hard to rent out, particularly in its current condition. The payment for the nursing home wil be done in line with the Fair Deal method of calculation. All of our parent's savings may eventually be exhausted by the cost of the nursing home. What do you propose happens when all the savings run out and a house is also sold and those funds also run out, leaving just the pension, which will not cover the cost? This is a very real possibility for many people.


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## Brendan Burgess

Andarma said:


> All of our parent's savings may eventually be exhausted by the cost of the nursing home. What do you propose happens when all the savings run out and a house is also sold and those funds also run out, leaving just the pension, which will not cover the cost?



Then the state will pay for it 

But I should not be paying your their care so that they can leave their house and savings to their children. 

Brendan


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## Early Riser

While the principle (a fairer contribution to costs) may be fair enough, I don't see this approach as practical - or particularly fair. Apart from issues of family crisis and/or conflict, and issues around the capacity of the person, as already mentioned, no one knows what the duration of the nursing home stay will be  - a month, 6 months, 2 years ???  How to rent in these circumstances?

Furthermore, houses in some areas (and depending on condition), may be almost unrentable. The shortage of supply is not universal. Who decides on the imputed rental value and how, eg, is it when the person enters the nursing home for an indefinite stay or at the end? What would be the administration cost ? I am sure that there would be many other issues.

Would it not be simpler and fairer to reform the scheme and include a higher annual deduction for everyone, eg, 10% for up to 5 years (this figure is just from the top of the head). If some can, and want to, rent to help cover this, then fine. One way or the other, the contribution to the housing crisis would be relatively small.


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## Palerider

Not in this situation and won't be as folks have passed on, whilst the debate is interesting I think the scheme is fair, it is hard enough to deal with all the issues that arise when a parent needs nursing home care, traumatic, frankly we have multiple other areas of waste in the system that need addressing before we get near the marginal state savings that just maybe obtained by the suggestion.

I think we have enough reluctant landlords in this country without looking for family members to step up, renovate to the standard required ( who pays ?) and list for rent, all a hassle that a designated family member will certainly not want in this busy world of ours.


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## valery

The scheme as set up favours home owners.  
Home owners contribute 7.5% of the house value for only 3 years.

Have recently been involved in organising the fair deal for a relative.  She never bought a property but has amassed considerable savings.  She has to contribute 7.5% of these each year until €36,000 remains.


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## noproblem

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi noproblem
> 
> It's not just people on social welfare. The lack of houses affects everyone.
> 
> If the supply of housing is increased, it will help people at all levels.
> 
> So if a house at €3,500 per month becomes available, the person taking that may be vacating a house at €2,000 a month and so on.
> 
> Brendan



I'm not disagreeing with you at all, but there's a huge number of unoccupied houses in the country with no nursing homes/fair deal involvement. An awful lot of people are turning up their noses at them. Why don't we sort that first before trying to sort another problem. Tough, tough, decisions are needed, those same tough decisions will need repeating with the fair deal properties also.


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## twofor1

Brendan Burgess said:


> There should be an imputed rent.  And if you don't collect it, then you pay for the nursing home yourselves.
> 
> In your particular case, it may make sense to sell the house.



This is a big part of the problem, it rarely makes sense to sell the house, so they remain empty.

The house is assessed at 7.5% annually for 3 years only, so the maximum that can be taken is 22.5%, even if the person in care lives for 10 years or more. By keeping the house, at some stage the beneficiaries are going to get at least 77.5% of the house value.

If the house was sold at the time of entering nursing home care, one would be assessed on the proceeds indefinitely. The longer the person in care lived the less there would be in the pot.

Perhaps an incentive to sell when the person enters nursing home care rather than when they die which can be many years later would surely see many empty homes on the market. And / or would a substantial vacant property tax do the trick ?

When Fair Deal started it was 5% of property value capped at 15% and 5% of other assets.

 By 2013 there were more people availing of Fair Deal and they were living longer so contributions were increased to 7.5% of property value capped at 22.5% and 7.5% of other assets.

Increasing the 7.5% again and extending the 3 year cap to 4 years would mean a lot more are paying themselves and at the same time leaving something for their beneficiaries.

I think these would be better solutions than the imputed rent solution which throws up numerous complications.


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## Gervan

I really can't see how this could work. If we had to offer our house for rent just now, no-one would want it! It's full of personal possessions, old equipment, things that don't work very well, beds with old mattresses, carpets that need cleaning. 
Is the proposal that the families now have to bring these vacant properties up to the standard that will be acceptable? Who is to pay for that, and what happens to a lifetime if books and belongings?


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## Threadser

Gervan said:


> I really can't see how this could work. If we had to offer our house for rent just now, no-one would want it! It's full of personal possessions, old equipment, things that don't work very well, beds with old mattresses, carpets that need cleaning.
> Is the proposal that the families now have to bring these vacant properties up to the standard that will be acceptable? Who is to pay for that, and what happens to a lifetime if books and belongings?


Very good point. Most houses vacated by elderly people are not in a suitable condition for renting. Also a parent moving to nursing home care is a hughly traumatic time. Expecting people to rush ahead and clear the family home of all personal belongings ignores the reality of the hugh emotional upheaval surrounding this whole process.


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## Leper

This whole subject stinks from where I sit. You are an old person and worked and paid taxes all your life. Suddenly, you are too infirm to stay at home and you must be hospitalised. Hospitals/Nursing Homes are such; they are not holiday homes. Currently, we punish people who have saved for old age and we award many who squandered every asset they have. The freeloaders get away scott free as usual.

Some form of fair play is required for everybody not marginalisation. Of course, we will never get this because of the "We get everything free" culture that our politicians have supported since the foundation of the state remains.

Just look at our Childrens' Allowance system.  Everybody gets it. Whether you are Leper or Michael O'Leary you are entitled. The 3rd Level Grants system is probably the most abused of all. Some of us pay through the roof to send somebody to university, many others screw the system and it costs them nothing. 

So now, we want to force our elderly to rent out their houses to pay for Nursing Homes/Hospitals. It's a loser from the start. Again it would only be the honest people who would be "caught."If this idea was inflicted on say the immigrant community there would be uproar. Somebody earlier said the unions were part of the cause of our elderly needing care. Sounds like that Austrian former corporal with the small moustache blaming the Jews for everything. Trade Unions don't represent the non paying elderly and never did.

The subject is becoming a little hurtful as its likes could plant a seed that will grow into a spreading ugly tree.


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## Brendan Burgess

I agree that we have a freeloader culture which should be tackled. 

I agree with others who have said we should tackle ghost estates. 

But we need to tackle all of the problems. 

And it's a huge problem to have homes lying vacant while people are in nursing homes.  

My priority here is to give people an incentive to rent out their houses or to discourage them from leaving them idle.

Of course, there will be practical problems.  It's a stressful time - fine, make no deduction for the first three months to allow the family to deal with one issue at a time. 

They don't want to be a landlord - fine.  Sell the house or pay the costs themselves. 

We have to make the housing crisis a priority and we must stop encouraging people to leave homes empty.  That housing crisis is at all levels and not just the lack of social housing. 

Brendan


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## Marsha25

I don't think it's that simple. A persons home is, in their mind, always going to be that. Many elderly may harbour a secret thought that they may someday go home and therefore not dwell on the fact that they are effectively heading to the departure lounge! Supposing there is no son/daughter, or they live away. Who is supposed to take charge of renting out the house, dealing with tenants, maintenance if a washing machine breaks etc? The home owner won't be in a position to do it.  I don't think anyone should be effectively pressured to rent out their house.  Going into a nursing home can be a traumatic stage in an elderely persons life.  For them to be pressured to give up that home, have to clear out all their belongings and have strangers move in is not going to be an easy task. 
And I agree with Leper, that generation have fulfilled their tax obligations over their years of working and should not be made feel that you or I are effectively paying for their care.  There are other sectors of community where I wholeheartedly begrudge funding via my tax contribution, but the elderly having to go into a nursing home is not one.


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi Marsha

There are two issues here 

The primary one is the shortage of housing.  I really think that we need to address this whatever way we can. We should not incentivise people to leave their homes vacant. 

The second one is the the fairness of it.  Like you I resent paying high taxes to pay some of the highest social welfare rates in europe and I resent that more than paying for elderly people's nursing home care. But I have to say, there is no reason why you should have to pay for my care if I have a valuable house which could be sold to fund it.  

Brendan


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## Marsha25

We had the situation where my elderly parent went into a nursing home. As his savings dwindled we had to look at the situation. He agreed to sell after a few months of being in the home.  There was no choice and we had to take into account the fact that the sale proceeds would then be assessed as savings for the second 3 year term.  It was a very stressful and emotional time, having to clear out all our parents possessions quite quickly and him knowing that his home was gone.  I do wonder how people manage without selling up as even with the fair deal contribution, money has to be paid weekly and if a person has an expensive house they are paying a good bit more than my father.  I'd say the stress of it all contributed to his demise. I wouldn't wish the situation on anyone. It does become necessary for some to sell up or rent in order to pay for their portion of fees, but I still don't think it should be a condition of availing of the fair deal.


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## Brendan Burgess

In virtually all these cases, the owner of the house is never going to return to them. It's immoral to leave the house empty when there is a shortage of houses.   It's immoral to have a system which encourages them to leave it empty.

As I said earlier, it's like paying farmers not to farm their land when people are starving.

Brendan


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## twofor1

One of my elderly relations built their own house at night and weekends, he  and his wife then reared their family in their family home.

She passed away, he is now in a nursing home under Fair Deal. He will never live at home again, but it is still his home and he is brought there for a cup of tea once or twice a week and he will watch the match there on Sunday afternoon.

If his home was rented he could never go home again.

If that's immoral so be it.

Expecting the elderly to rent the family home is not the solution, there are other options.


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## Clamball

I think it is right that vacant homes become part of the housing stock for the good of the country.  But there are many considerations before fair deal recipients should be compelled to rent their home as part of the fair deal scheme.

I know my in-laws found it all very tramuatic with my MIL becoming ill before Christmas, the acute hospital trying to discharge her, when she could no longer walk and her mental state deteoriating rapidly.  Getting so much conflicting information on the fair deal, needing to organise valuations, agree a nursing home, explain any delays to the acute hospital, solicitors, banks, all the bills for the house etc.  The fair deal seemed to be pretty confrontional as far as I could see as they were ensuring all bank accounts and assets were declared as the MIL had left very confused records.  Adding to all that stress the requirement to get the house into a rentable state, remove and deal with personal belongings, etc just seems to add another layer of stress.   I am sure my inlaws would be very happy to use the rental income to maintain the house, pay towards the fair deal etc.   But as some one else said reluctant landlords have a lot to deal with, if you need to pay house insurance where does the money come from?  80% of income goes to nursing home, 20% belongs to the home owner and many of them are in no position to approve payments.

If the government steps in to help and set up a one stop shop what's the betting it becomes so beruacatic that the elderly person waits even longer in an acute bed before the transfer to a nursing home and the health system suffers.


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## odyssey06

I think also in 'weighing the balance sheet', you forget the taxes that these people would have paid all their life... on the understanding that they paid it when they had it and the state would be there for them when they needed it.
If we're to move away from that model then we would also need to look at all other aspects of the taxes and state supports model.

At the moment the state is getting something back from the value of these assets... I think there's a very real chance if the state tries to grab too much \ makes the conditions too onerous they will find there's nothing there to grab. Why leave a nest egg if the state will confiscate it... spend it all, live the high life and end up with nothing in reserve at 65 - and the state will give you the same support.
Then you are into moral hazard territory...


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## Monbretia

Should people be compelled to rent out spare bedrooms in their house?  Anyone living in a house on their own with more than one bedroom    Might be a lot easier than getting perhaps an old house ready for renting.  It wouldn't help with nursing home costs but would help the housing situation.

  I know there is no way my father's house would rent in it's present state, nothing really wrong with it if you are of his era but I wouldn't rate the chances of younger people renting it, no dishwasher/dryer and no room for them either.

Actually there is a council house near his that has been fully renovated and has been turned down by several people, it's old style very small by today's standards with a kitchen no bigger than most utility rooms, people just won't go for that anymore.  Might be different if all these properties were in Dublin but they are not.


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## Gordon Gekko

My own view is that there should be incentives to give up larger/vacant homes rather than penalties for having them.

The sanctity of the family home must be preserved; it is up to Government to solve the housing crisis through the delivery of new units, not by way of a land grab and demonisation of people who have paid their way all their lives.


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## Brendan Burgess

Monbretia said:


> Should people be compelled to rent out spare bedrooms in their house? Anyone living in a house on their own with more than one bedroom  M



Probably not. But if they are on social welfare or if they are getting rent allowance, they absolutely should be.  

If I want to pay to live on my own in a three bed house that is fine. But I should not be getting paid by the state to do so.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> he sanctity of the family home must be preserved;



That is exactly what we need to demolish.

Some religious notion that you should pay taxes to keep my father in a nursing home so that he can keep his house empty and leave it to me free of taxes when he dies.

There should not be anything sacred about the family home during a housing crisis.

Brendan


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## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> In virtually all these cases, the owner of the house is never going to return to them. It's immoral to leave the house empty when there is a shortage of houses. It's immoral to have a system which encourages them to leave it empty.



Presumably you are basing this on some general moral principle, rather than just that you have strong views about this matter. It would be helpful if you could state the general principle and then we might see how solidly grounded it is and how this could be applied to other situations.

Its just that I tend to get suspicious when someone starts justifying there position on the basis of "morality". It often sounds like they are saying that "my morality is superior to your morality and that's why I can see that this position is correct and you cannot." It is also simply a variation of every argument of the more extreme left for penal taxation of everything - "its immoral that some people have lots when others have so little". (Ironic given your comments on Welfare).

I know that this is not what you are saying but you seem to  be basing your position here on a similar exposition of "morality". By the way, I do think the Fair Deal scheme needs to be reformed as otherwise it will be unsustainable and/or it will be confined to only a minority who need it. But I would prefer to keep vague morality out of it.


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## Marsha25

"Ireland provides a reasonable safety net to most people.  It's not perfect, but it's broad and accessible.  The basis of the social safety net is give and take.  Yes, older people have paid taxes, and many are financially vulnerable.  But there are also many who are relatively wealthy (or at least asset rich) and surely should not be benefiting from the common fund, which then leaves less for those in genuine need.  We have progressive income tax which recognises that those of us who have more are in a position to pay more - it's not unreasonable for that to extend to the fair deal scheme.[/QUOTE]

Is it not already part of the Fair Deal though - those who have anything over €36k have to pay 7.5% of the excess per year along with 80% of their income. So while one persons assets are worth 80k and they have a small pension, another person could have a house worth 500k with a substantial pension, and another person no house at all and living on state non contributory pension.  Each person pays a different amount based on their means.


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## jjm

Early Riser said:


> Presumably you are basing this on some general moral principle, rather than just that you have strong views about this matter. It would be helpful if you could state the general principle and then we might see how solidly grounded it is and how this could be applied to other situations.
> 
> Its just that I tend to get suspicious when someone starts justifying there position on the basis of "morality". It often sounds like they are saying that "my morality is superior to your morality and that's why I can see that this position is correct and you cannot." It is also simply a variation of every argument of the more extreme left for penal taxation of everything - "its immoral that some people have lots when others have so little". (Ironic given your comments on Welfare).
> 
> I know that this is not what you are saying but you seem to  be basing your position here on a similar exposition of "morality". By the way, I do think the Fair Deal scheme needs to be reformed as otherwise it will be unsustainable and/or it will be confined to only a minority who need it. But I would prefer to keep vague morality out of it.



   How many houses are we talking about any figures please .I suspect when you take out all the people who finish up in a Nursing home where there partner still lives at home along with the people who spend less than a year in a nursing home before the die we are talking about very few houses

These houses will be coming on to the market when the die anyway,


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## arbitron

Marsha25 said:


> Is it not already part of the Fair Deal though - those who have anything over €36k have to pay 7.5% of the excess per year along with 80% of their income. So while one persons assets are worth 80k and they have a small pension, another person could have a house worth 500k with a substantial pension, and another person no house at all and living on state non contributory pension.  Each person pays a different amount based on their means.



No, people are penalised for holding assets as cash rather than as their family home.  There is a 3-year cap to a maximum of 22.5% charge on the family home.  This does not apply to cash or other assets.



			
				From Citizens Information said:
			
		

> *Your contribution to care*
> 
> Having looked at your income and assets, the Financial Assessment will work out your contribution to care. You will contribute:
> 
> 
> 80% of your income (less deductions below) and
> 7.5% of the value of any assets per annum (5% if the application was made before 25 July 2013)
> However, the first €36,000 of your assets, or €72,000 for a couple, will not be counted at all in the Financial Assessment.
> 
> Where your assets include land and property, the 7.5% contribution based on such assets may be deferred and paid to Revenue after your death. This is known as the Nursing Home Loan. You can read more about the repayment of the Nursing Home Loan in the FAQs on the Nursing Homes Support Scheme (pdf).
> 
> Your principal residence will only be included in the financial assessment for the first 3 years of your time in care. This is known as the 22.5% or ‘three-year cap' (the cap is 15% for applications made before 25 July 2013). It means that you will pay a 7.5% contribution based on your principal residence for a maximum of 3 years regardless of the length of time you spend in nursing home care.
> 
> In the case of a couple, the contribution based on the principal residence will be capped at 11.25% (7.5% for applications before 25 July 2013) where one partner remains in the home while the other enters long-term nursing home care, that is, the ‘three-year cap’ applies. If you opt for the Nursing Home Loan in respect of your principal residence, your spouse or partner can also apply to have the repayment of the Loan deferred for their lifetime
> 
> If you have already been in a nursing home for 3 years when you apply for the scheme, then you do not pay the 7.5% on your principal residence.
> 
> After 3 years, even if you are still getting long-term nursing home care, you will not pay any further contribution based on the principal residence. This ‘three-year cap’ applies regardless of whether you choose to opt for the Nursing Home Loan or not.
> 
> All other assets will be taken into account for as long as you are in care.


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## Brendan Burgess

Early Riser said:


> Presumably you are basing this on some general moral principle, rather than just that you have strong views about this matter. It would be helpful if you could state the general principle and then we might see how solidly grounded it is and how this could be applied to other situations.



Maybe "moral" is the wrong word here.  How about "wrong"? 

It's just plain wrong to encourage people to leave houses idle. 

And that doesn't matter if it's the Fair Deal Scheme or the ban on bedsits or the RPZs. 

But this one is wrong on all counts. 
It takes property off the market 
And the taxpayer is paying for it.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

arbitron said:


> No, people are penalised for holding assets as cash rather than as their family home. There is a 3-year cap to a maximum of 22.5% charge on the family home. This does not apply to cash or other assets.



That is a very good point. 

If I hold onto my home while I am in a nursing home, I pay a maximum of 22.5%

If I sell it which would be better for society , I will end up paying 7.5% of the value for longer. 

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> It's just plain wrong to encourage people to leave houses idle.



How are people being *encouraged *to leave houses idle?
That implies that the scheme actively discourages them from being rented out currently - could you clarify that?
I'm not clear on what the incentive is at the moment to leave the house idle versus renting it out.


----------



## arbitron

jjm said:


> How many houses are we talking about any figures please .I suspect when you take out all the people who finish up in a Nursing home where there partner still lives at home along with the people who spend less than a year in a nursing home before the die we are talking about very few houses
> 
> These houses will be coming on to the market when the die anyway,



I doubt anyone has those figures to hand.  Maybe someone could extrapolate?

We know that between 700 and 1,000 people are approved for FDS each month.  More people join each month than leave the scheme.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

odyssey06 said:


> How are people being *encouraged *to leave houses idle?
> That implies that the scheme actively discourages them from being rented out currently - could you clarify that?
> I'm not clear on what the incentive is at the moment to leave the house idle versus renting it out.



Hi Odyssey

I have set it out in this post

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...to-rent-out-their-houses.204672/#post-1525898

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Odyssey
> I have set it out in this post
> https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...to-rent-out-their-houses.204672/#post-1525898



There is an incentive to not sell their house while alive I grant you.
But I would not interpret "_in many cases, there would be no incentive to rent_" to be the same as "_people are being encouraged to leave houses idle._"

If your primary concern is making more housing stock available, I think it would be possible to propose a reform of the Fair Deal scheme such that there would be an incentive to rent - without resorting to making it a mandatory requirement.
I think people could be persuaded of the benefits of a policy that encourages people to rent out their homes while participating in the Fair Deal scheme.

And such a reform would have far more chance of being politically possible.


----------



## noproblem

Everyone, including myself, is throwing in their tuppence worth about this particular "problem. I see the sanctity of the family being muted as having to be preserved, and yet there are very many people who could and should be taking care of their parents in their old age but they don't and they won't. However, they'll make sure everything imaginable is done in order for themselves to profit from the assets of their parents and also make sure the state pays as much as possible to mind their very own flesh and blood, even down to pre- planning (scheming) the sale of any assets and turning them into cash which somehow has disappeared when applying for fair deal or admittance to a nursing home.  Oh yes, we have many who love and dote on their Mum and Dad and will do everything for them, but boy oh boy do we have the takers? 
Tough on anyone trying to get this working, politics is too open to being bought, sadly. Maybe the goverment should look at other ways where their involvement is not the final say.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> The current situation is as if we had shortages of food in Ireland and we were paying some farmers not to produce food.



The analogy doesn't hold, though, as we don't have a shortage of houses in Ireland. We have a shortage of houses in certain locations. And we have homeless people refusing to live in certain situations.

Apart from the relatively small number of people availing of the Fair deal scheme, we have a plethora of holiday homes. Should these be requisitioned to deal with the crisis? Should people be obliged to move to where housing is available ? There is also a lot of free space in the city areas where homelessness is the biggest issues. Some of it is in large gardens attached to private property. Should the owners be obliged (morally or otherwise) to accommodate a mobile home as a temporary measure in the emergency ? Would any of this be fairer than attributing a moral responsibility for homelessness (or, at least, its solution) to people at the most vulnerable point in their lives?



Brendan Burgess said:


> If I sell it which would be better for society , *I will end up paying 7.5% of the value for longer*.



You are conflating two separate issues. Yes, the Fair Deal funding needs to be reformed. So why not do this by increasing both the 7.5% and the 3 year thresholds ? If it would help in the housing crisis, you could also separately incentivise the renting of these houses by exempting any income for the reckoning of Fair Deal. This would be more attractive to owners in high demand areas, where homelessness is most an issue.


----------



## Gordon Gekko

Brendan Burgess said:


> There should not be anything sacred about the family home during a housing crisis.
> 
> Brendan



Brendan,

I don't agree that the two points are linked in any way.

Forcing people out of their homes is not a solution to the housing crisis; building homes is.

Whether the State should pay for us to go into nursing homes or not is a separate issue. 

The family home is sacrosanct in my view.

Gordon


----------



## noproblem

jjm said:


> Are you saying Governments should not govern most of the problems we have at present can be traced back to governments no longer being directly responsible for getting value for how taxpayers money is spent just look at the HSE as an example,


Not in the words you're using, but yes, a way has to be found that does not involve the electorate having undue influence that will have an always negative value overall.


----------



## twofor1

The 2015 Review of The Nursing Home Support Scheme contains 104 pages of info and statistics, way too much detail for me at this hour on a Sunday evening.

Page 20 says at the end of 2015 there were 23,960 persons in under Fair Deal.

Page 24 says at the end of 2014 the average stay was 35 months.

Page 34 says 56.4% of applicants have a PPR.

The Appendix outlines long term care services in other countries.

http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Review-of-Nursing-Homes-Support-Scheme.pdf


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> Forcing people out of their homes is not a solution to the housing crisis;



Hi Gordon

I don't understand this reference?  I don't think that anyone has proposed forcing anyone out of their homes?

Brendan


----------



## jjm

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Gordon
> 
> I don't understand this reference?  I don't think that anyone has proposed forcing anyone out of their homes?
> 
> Brendan


It may be the family home in lots of cases .parent/parents often finish up going into a nursing home close to where they live and there family who live a long way from there parents home may be using the family home when they come to visit them .Lots of family members may have put investments into the family home which are in good condition ,You must remember lots of people who are in nursing homes today would only have the OAP pension and would have got lots help from family,Unless the family are forced out of there family homes and the home sold or rented I don't see how the can help sort the housing crisis,

I don't think that anyone proposed forcing anyone out of there homes but the cannot do anything to help the housing crisis unless there is some one living in there family home who are not family if a family member finishes up in a nursing home,May not be explained well but hope most will understand the above point i am making,


----------



## jjm

PMU said:


> Why? The Fair Deal scheme is concerned with the provision of financial support for those with long term nursing home care needs. These needs have no correlation with the market for housing.
> 
> It's always reasonable to assess if the Fair Deal is being reasonably financed, but this does not appear to be a problem at present, as according to today's Indo, the government is to review the scheme to reduce the cost of nursing home care for farmers and small businesses.
> http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/farmers-dont-want-special-treatment-from-fair-deal-36024806.html.
> 
> It would be most unreasonable if pensioners, i.e. those on fixed incomes, were forced to rent out their homes to make up any shortfall in Fair Deal funding if those in the farming and enterprise sectors get a special deal.





noproblem said:


> Everyone, including myself, is throwing in their tuppence worth about this particular "problem. I see the sanctity of the family being muted as having to be preserved, and yet there are very many people who could and should be taking care of their parents in their old age but they don't and they won't. However, they'll make sure everything imaginable is done in order for themselves to profit from the assets of their parents and also make sure the state pays as much as possible to mind their very own flesh and blood, even down to pre- planning (scheming) the sale of any assets and turning them into cash which somehow has disappeared when applying for fair deal or admittance to a nursing home.  Oh yes, we have many who love and dote on their Mum and Dad and will do everything for them, but boy oh boy do we have the takers?
> Tough on anyone trying to get this working, politics is too open to being bought, sadly. Maybe the goverment should look at other ways where their involvement is not the final say.



You can see why lobby groups would have a field day if the fair deal scheme was at arms length from government ,


----------



## PaddyBloggit

Somebody in government must be following this thread:

http://www.independent.ie/irish-new...uraged-to-lease-out-their-homes-36028561.html


----------



## twofor1

PaddyBloggit said:


> Somebody in government must be following this thread:



Great that Minister Murphy is listening to us.

I would have no issue with encouragement and incentives for those who are able to and want to rent vacant homes. It would make homes available and it would help families of those in care pay additional costs not covered under Fair Deal.

As long as there is no expectation that the elderly should rent their homes, and the elderly are not penalized if they don’t or can’t for whatever reason rent their homes.


----------



## Threadser

Going back to the title of the existing thread I don't think there should be a "compulsory" requirement to rent out the family home in instances where a parent moves to a nursing home. However I think for families who wish to do so and for houses in areas where there is significant demand then the prohibitive terms of the fair deal scheme should be amended. It doesn't make sense to consider the rental income of the property as income for the nursing home resident and therefore to require the family to pay 80% of it towards the cost of care.

Providing incentives to upgrade/rennovate such houses in areas of high housing demand should be considered. Making it obligitory for families in remote rural areas to rent such houses makes no sense and will do nothing to solve the housing crises.


----------



## delfio

Gordon Gekko said:


> Brendan,
> 
> I don't agree that the two points are linked in any way.
> 
> Forcing people out of their homes is not a solution to the housing crisis; building homes is.
> 
> 
> Gordon



I agree totally.  There is all this talk about councils receiving funding to build new social housing however, there is no sign of any construction actuvity commencing.  What is happening, why aren't the houses been built?  
Brendan premise about forcing the elderly to sell up will not work because in reality, many of these houses are out in the sticks, in areas where there is no employment and even if they was employment/services in the area the houses would need massive renovations to bring them up to modern standards. 

Many people from the countryside are moving to the cities leaving behind empty houses which no body is willing to buy and besides house prices in the country particularly the west are still very depressed. 

The solution is to start a building program in areas where they is huge demand not try to force an elderly lady  sell off her little cottage of modest value  in the countryside  while the developers keep sitting on vast parcels land banks in the hopes of lining their pockets with more dosh.

It's very easy to scapegoat the elderly as in general they don't have much of a voice.


----------



## Gordon Gekko

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Gordon
> 
> I don't understand this reference?  I don't think that anyone has proposed forcing anyone out of their homes?
> 
> Brendan



Hi Brendan,

Is that not what you are suggesting?

i.e. that people are compelled to sell or rent out their family home?

Gordon


----------



## Early Riser

delfio said:


> There is all this talk about councils receiving funding to build new social housing however, there is no sign of any construction actuvity commencing. What is happening, why aren't the houses been built?



Agreed. But lets see the outburst of NIMBYism that sprouts up whenever concrete (!) proposals materialise. Many of the NIMBYs will be the ones who now shout about the shame of homelessness.



delfio said:


> It's very easy to scapegoat the elderly as in general they don't have much of a voice



Agreed about scape-goating in relation to this specific proposal. But the elderly have quite a powerful voice politically (because they vote?) and have protected themselves relatively well over the past 10 years.The funding cap on the PPR contribution to Fair Deal badly needs to be reviewed.


----------



## thedaddyman

The sheer lack of humanity in this idea and much of the discussion around it is absolutely appalling. Getting an elderly relative moved to a nursing home is often a difficult enough task, many ( and I'm speaking from experience here) only do so in the belief that it is respite care for a few weeks or months and not accepting the fact that they will never return home. We shouldn't underestimate the psychological impact being told they now have to rent out the home they raised their family in to pay for that care would have on some of these people. We should also remember that this is a generation who grew up on stories of the Tans and the British evicting people from their homes and now the suggestion that in 2017 Ireland has turned full circle and are now going to do the same to vulnerable people beggars belief. In addition, for many elderly people who are living at home, it will put significant fear and uncertainty into their lives with the belief that if they get any illness, they can be turfed into a home. What's next, bring back workhouses?

A previous poster mentioned that often these houses are used as bases for family members and this is correct

Our older generation deserve a bit more respect then rubbish like this. And remember, we'll all be old someday ourselves so be careful what you wish for


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> Is that not what you are suggesting?
> 
> i.e. that people are compelled to sell or rent out their family home?



I have referred only to cases where people have gone into nursing homes.  I have not suggested forcing anyone out of their home. 

I wouldn't even be compelling people to sell or rent their house. I would just be saying "If you want me to contribute towards the cost of your nursing home care, I will gladly do so, but only after you have rented out or sold your home." 

If they don't want to sell their home or rent it out fine. But don't ask me to fund that. 

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

thedaddyman said:


> And remember, we'll all be old someday ourselves so be careful what you wish for



I hope to get old. 
If I go into a nursing home while I still own a house mortgage free, I will not be asking your children to pay for it. 

It's bonkers to expect this. 

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> I hope to get old.
> If I go into a nursing home while I still own a house mortgage free, I will not be asking your children to pay for it.
> Brendan



I wouldn't expect them to either, I'd expect them to take it from all the taxes I paid them hitherto... the taxes that at the time paid for those children's education etc etc
Now the generational account is being balanced?


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi Odyssey 

We have €200 billion of national debt and €300 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. No one is paying their way. I  think we should begin to do so.

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Odyssey
> We have €200 billion of national debt and €300 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. No one is paying their way. I  think we should begin to do so.



Let's abolish the social welfare system then. I can pay my own way and I won't look for anything from the state, but don't use a single cent of my taxes to pay for social support for anyone else.
If you want to have an individual balance sheet, I'm open to that, but people need to know to expect that when they make provision for their retirement.

The people in the Fair Deal scheme now, they paid taxes all their life, you can't start counting the balance sheet from when they went into the scheme and ignore all the contributions they made up until then.

The figures above are so bad due to the absolute inability of governments to control spending and get value for money from expenditure.


----------



## jjm

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Odyssey
> 
> We have €200 billion of national debt and €300 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. No one is paying their way. I  think we should begin to do so.
> 
> Brendan


There is a good chance the people who are now in nursing homes have paid there way and have also invested in the people who are now on good wages most people know this but there will always be the few who do not  .

What we are now down to is some of the present generation don't want to help the next generation and are expecting the people who are in nursing homes to give them a free pass which is not going to happen,


----------



## thedaddyman

Brendan Burgess said:


> I hope to get old.
> If I go into a nursing home while I still own a house mortgage free, I will not be asking your children to pay for it.
> 
> It's bonkers to expect this.
> 
> Brendan



bonkers is a fair description for your idea. You'd be perfectly happy for my childrens taxes to pay for your doctor's, nurses, ambulences and whatever else, so why not share some of the costs of your nursing home?. After all, your taxes paid for their education and up bringing.

You are completely missing the moral requirement any society has to take care of it's vulnerable people


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> We have €200 billion of national debt and €300 billion of unfunded pension liabilities. No one is paying their way. I think we should begin to do so.



So now we are back to the funding issue. Then lets address it as such. Increase the cap beyond the 7.5% and 3 year limits. Do not put intolerable burdens on families (and costly administrative burdens on the system) at this stressful and complex time.


----------



## Gordon Gekko

Brendan Burgess said:


> I have referred only to cases where people have gone into nursing homes.  I have not suggested forcing anyone out of their home.
> 
> I wouldn't even be compelling people to sell or rent their house. I would just be saying "If you want me to contribute towards the cost of your nursing home care, I will gladly do so, but only after you have rented out or sold your home."
> 
> If they don't want to sell their home or rent it out fine. But don't ask me to fund that.
> 
> Brendan



Can the same not be said of most forms of benefit?

Why should we pay a State Pension to this person? Why not force them to sell their home and buy an annuity?

The "victims" in this scenario are people who've paid their taxes and been prudent. I have no issue with them getting a "Fair Deal". Far more deserving than (for example) the tripe we're being fed about "the homeless" on a daily basis. "Homeless" means sleeping rough, not some single mother with a sense of entitlement who thinks that a State funded hotel isn't good enough for her.

I can see your point but I'm more concerned at the overall narrative that seems to be gaining traction, which is an attack on people who pay their way (e.g. a hardening of Fair Deal, CGT on family homes, etc).


----------



## Early Riser

PMU said:


> This is a glaring omission as public debate is now centering on forcing long term invalids to rent out their houses to solve this 'crisis'.



But is there such a public debate ? Has it been seriously raised elsewhere from this thread (where I think it has been thoroughly debunked) ? The problem from the outset here is that two unrelated issues have been conflated in a way that serves only to cloud both.

I am not knowledgeable about the details of the homelessness situation but I doubt if the solution may be as simple as you suggest. However, I do note that in addition to the housing stock that you allude to above, our Local Authorities have turned down over 2000 homes for social housing from NAMA. (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/soc...2-000-nama-homes-for-social-housing-1.2924785) .

The lack of housing units per se does not seem to be at the root of the homelessness situation. Fair Deal is a red herring here.

However, quite separately, Fair Deal funding needs to be reviewed. As our population age it will become increasingly unaffordable in its present format. The cap of 7.5% over 3 years is arbitrary and inadequate. Confining its application to nursing homes (rather than including appropriate -and cheaper - homecare packages) is insane and inhumane (although beneficial to nursing home owners). If it is not funded better more and more people are going to be left on waiting lists. Why protect 78% of the PPRs value for inheritors rather than providing for people's needs?


----------



## Brendan Burgess

thedaddyman said:


> You are completely missing the moral requirement any society has to take care of it's vulnerable people



Not at all. If I have assets of €300k when I go into a nursing home, I am not financially vulnerable.  I can pay my own way. 

You should not have to pay for my nursing home care so that I can leave the bulk of the €300k to my kids. 

If I have no means of paying for my nursing home, I would then expect you to pay for it.

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> Can the same not be said of most forms of benefit?
> 
> Why should we pay a State Pension to this person? Why not force them to sell their home and buy an annuity?



Gordon 

I have been a big advocate of relating the pension to the contribution made. 

If someone has paid PRSI for years, they should get a pension based on that.

For non-contributory pensions, the family home should absolutely be taken into the means test.

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> 1) It's wrong to leave houses empty so that the owner's children can inherit them.
> 2) It's unfair that I have to pay for someone else's nursing home care, when they can well afford it.



You're not paying for it. If they are this well off they will have been net contributors to the Exchequer over their lifetime, they have been paying it forward all their lives and now they are calling in their chips. The average stay in Fair Deal scheme is 35 months (as noted earlier in thread).
The state is getting 80% of their income per year, 7.5% of their assets per year, and 7.5% of the value of their home for 3 years which matches that average stay duration. That's a pretty large contribution.
The people whose nursing home care you are paying for, and paying the full cost of, is those who could not or did not make provision for such an eventuality and are making no contribution to the Exchequer for the cost of their care.

The consequence of proposals such as these will be to create more people acting like 'Drowsy' and less people acting like 'Sleepy Head' (as per @Early Riser)
I don't see good consequences for the Exchequer when that comes to pass.
You feel that the current structure of Fair Deal encourages property to be idle in a time of housing crisis.
This proposal encourages people to be idle or spendthrifts. It punishes prudence and encourages irresponsibility.
And that is wrong. And unfair.


----------



## Early Riser

odyssey06 said:


> Any government minister who starts talking about the vacant homes of private citizens as being culpable in the housing crisis is using it as a smokescreen to divert attention from their primary culpability



odyssey - In fairness ,the brief report I read of the Government's proposal suggested that they were considering offering incentives to people in Fair Deal to rent out their homes. I don't have a difficulty with this as it appears optional and doesn't require an added burden. It may suit some.

Brendan's mooted proposal is different as it would be compulsory - at the cost of a financial penalty. I do have a big difficulty with that, if I understood it correctly.


----------



## jjm

Early Riser said:


> odyssey - In fairness ,the brief report I read of the Government's proposal suggested that they were considering offering incentives to people in Fair Deal to rent out their homes. I don't have a difficulty with this as it appears optional and doesn't require an added burden. It may suit some.
> 
> Brendan's mooted proposal is different as it would be compulsory - at the cost of a financial penalty. I do have a big difficulty with that, if I understood it correctly.



Be careful this will  now opens the door for the lobby group for family busness/family farms and such like to get incentives ,

The present Attorney General advice in the last few weeks was that special allowances could not be given to certian lobby groups unless it applied to everyone looking for the fair deal I suspect  the Government wants to create a loophole so lobby groups get there way and are using the Housing shortages as a way of doing so,

You cannot leave a Family farm or busness  lie idle in the Real World If  the owner has to go into a nursing home at present i think the nursing home will get a %  of the income at present  , By the time Brendan and the Government are finished the taxpayer will finish up picking up the tab and the houses problem will not gain any advantage from the incentives,These Incentives are not designed  to help the people who suffer from a shortage of housing,

Google Attorney General Fair Deal and see report,

When the present Government was formed there was a review of the fair deal carried out .The results were not made public I wonder why,


----------



## Early Riser

jjm said:


> When the present Government was formed there was a review of the fair deal carried out .The results were not made public I wonder why,



This review, jjm - or was there another one since then? Anyway, I think the funding proposals may have been too politically toxic. See Chapter 8.

http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Review-of-Nursing-Homes-Support-Scheme.pdf


----------



## jjm

Early Riser said:


> This review, jjm - or was there another one since then? Anyway, I think the funding proposals may have been too politically toxic. See Chapter 8.
> 
> http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Review-of-Nursing-Homes-Support-Scheme.pdf


Thanks  Early Riser
There was a review when the present Government took office the one above was carried out by  junior minister K  Lynch before last government left office,

Looking at Minister K Lynch review above on page 84 to 90 you can see  only about 1% to 2% of the people in nursing homes fit the income range Brendan was on about ,taking 15.57% instead of 7.5% of the family home each year would bring in 26 million extra per year if I read it correctly.

 Brendan suggestion of an incentive could finish up costing the taxpayer more in lost revenue if it creates a loophole ,


----------



## Gordon Gekko

One applies for Fair Deal, correct?

i.e. it's not mandatory and the choice is alway there to just pay the circa €60k a year yourself (€36k net of tax).


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> One applies for Fair Deal, correct?



Yes, and it should remain so. 

And if an elderly person wants to pay for their own nursing home care and keep their family home empty, then let them do so. 

But we should not pay for someone's accommodation when they are leaving other accommodation lying idle. 

Brendan


----------



## Slim

I think we need to look at the whole picture realistically: The social insurance model was never designed to pay for nursing home care - pension and unemployment yes but not residential NH care. General taxation was designed to pay for, as well as everything else, basic health care. The model of health care has developed over the last few decades, driven by medical and scientific research to the level we are approaching, which is laying massive costs on public health systems. General taxation has not kept up with the contribution needed to fund this, in a sustainable way. The NHS is under incredible pressure an is in danger of breaking apart.

The Fair Deal scheme was an innovative and compassionate scheme to assist people with end of life residential care. It incorporates the notion of people paying(80%) of their income along with a percentage of any assets(7.5%). This latter % should exhaust most assets in 13/15 years, not allowing for any growth. The notion of the sanctity of the 'family home' in Irish society led to the cap of 3 years on the home, also the fact that a spouse/partner may still be alive and living there was a factor. So, rather than sell or rent the property, the facility was included to provide the 'Ancillary State Support' i.e. the nursing home loan, which must be repaid after death of the surviving spouse. The mechanism is there to facilitate proper payment towards nursing home costs. There is no logic, financial or moral, that says the state, i.e. the taxpayer, should pay to preserve the inheritance for the children, which is what the cap does. 

TL;DR - Therefore, the logical solution is to modify and remove the cap, say to 5%, but in place until the value equals the value of the house. This can be recovered by sale after death. 

No doubt, the Irish solution will be to get around this by transfer pf property/assets etc but that is something the government would need to counteract.

It is not realistic to force people to rent out their PPR for a number of reasons, surviving spouse in it, state of the place, possible legal impediments, etc. To assign an imputed value of possible rental would seem unfair and subject to challenge, but may be workable. In that scenario, the capital contribution of value of PPR needs to be looked at again.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi Slim 

A good overview. 

Just to clarify one thing. I had never intended to suggest that a home should be rented out if the spouse was living in it.  In most cases I have come across it's a widow or widower who has left an empty house behind. 



Slim said:


> There is no logic, financial or moral, that says the state, i.e. the taxpayer, should pay to preserve the inheritance for the children, which is what the cap does.



Delighted to see someone else agreeing with this point. 



Slim said:


> It is not realistic to force people to rent out their PPR for a number of reasons,


Again, no one would be forced to. It's just that the state would not pay for their care if they were not prepared to rent out their house. 

We cannot leave houses empty during a housing crisis. We have to get over the complexities involved in either selling the house or letting it out. 

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Slim said:


> The social insurance model was never designed to pay for nursing home care - pension and unemployment yes but not residential NH care.



This is a really important point.  Many posters have argued. They paid their taxes so the state should pay their nursing home care.  

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

Slim said:


> General taxation was designed to pay for, as well as everything else, basic health care.



Precisely as most posters have been saying.



Slim said:


> General taxation has not kept up with the contribution needed to fund this, in a sustainable way



Agreed - no argument there.



Slim said:


> *The Fair Deal scheme was an innovative and compassionate scheme to assist people with end of life residential care*



This should be in bold - lest we forget.



Slim said:


> Therefore, the logical solution is to modify and remove the cap,



Absolutely agreed. The point of debate for me is how to modify the cap. It is currently 7.5% for 3 years. You seem to suggest 5% open-ended? As I think 3 years is about the average length of stay(?) I would go for a higher rate for a limited period, eg , 12% for 4 years. After all this person was a taxpayer who has paid into the general taxpayer pool for healthcare. Why should everything he has be confiscated when Joe next door who happens not to need nursing home care gets to leave all his estate. We are either a society with some sharing of contribution and risk or we are not.

I do think there is an argument for a ring-fenced estate levy on all deceased to pay into a general pool for Fair Deal.



Slim said:


> It is not realistic to force people to rent out their PPR for a number of reasons, surviving spouse in it, state of the place, possible legal impediments, etc. To assign an imputed value of possible rental would seem unfair and subject to challenge,



Absolute common sense. Not to mention how far away away it would be from the original concept of Fair Deal, as you have already outlined in your quote above in bold.

To add, Fair Deal should be extended for homecare packages.


----------



## jjm

Brendan Burgess said:


> Yes, and it should remain so.
> 
> And if an elderly person wants to pay for their own nursing home care and keep their family home empty, then let them do so.
> 
> But we should not pay for someone's accommodation when they are leaving other accommodation lying idle.
> 
> Brendan



Take your no 1 post
So you have no problem  allowing this house worth large amounts of money in areas where there is high demand to lie idle if the 2 people who will finish up owning can pay for the person who is in a nursing home fees and get a large amount of money back in tax relief once they do not apply for the fair deal scheme whose house is fit for renting  ,These 2 people will  cost the state/taxpayers more than someone who applies for the fair deal scheme,

you would then put a large amount of red tape on someone else who may have to apply for the fair deal scheme whose house may not be fit to rent out or may not be in a area where there is no demand for rented out,

This will cost the taxpayers more Every day we see the state squandering large amounts of  taxpayers money and human  talent just doing what you propose ,


----------



## Brendan Burgess

jjm said:


> So you have no problem allowing this house worth large amounts of money in areas where there is high demand to lie idle



I wouldn't say I have no problem. But if someone doesn't want to rent out their house and can afford not to do so, I wouldn't force them to do so. 



jjm said:


> get a large amount of money back in tax relief once they do not apply for the fair deal scheme whose house is fit for renting ,



That's an interesting point.  One gets 20% tax relief on medical expenses but full tax relief on nursing home fees. I would certainly be open to reviewing that.




jjm said:


> These 2 people will cost the state/taxpayers more than someone who applies for the fair deal scheme,



Can you show your calculations to show how you arrived at this conclusion. I don't think it's correct. 





jjm said:


> you would then put a large amount of red tape on someone else who may have to apply for the fair deal scheme whose house may not be fit to rent out or may not be in a area where there is no demand for rented out,



I don't think it's a huge amount of red tape. 

Most houses are capable of being rented out. If it can't be rented out, then it should be sold.  

You could impute a rent of 7% of the value of the property and tax that as well.  This would mean that there would be an incentive to rent out the property. 

The current system means that many people have no incentive to rent out their property even if it's  a fine property in a high demand area. 

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> The current system means that many people have no incentive to rent out their property even if it's a fine property in a high demand area.



 And I understand from press reports that providing some form of incentive to rent such properties is being considered. Very good. I have not read of any proposals for punitive measures to try to force people to rent.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi jjm

If you make a statement like that, you really should provide the figures to prove it. 

I have shown in this post that renting out is better for everyone

The owner
The new tenant
and
The taxpayer

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threa...to-rent-out-their-houses.204672/#post-1525898

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

I started this thread last Saturday. It has nothing to do with government's strokes.

Brendan


----------



## Thirsty

Just curious, Brendan if your proposal extends to those needing Hospice care also?  It costs around 4k per week for Hospice care - should that be recovered from the persons estate?

What about folks who aren't terminally ill but need respite or convalescence - does that become a bill to be paid after death?

Care allowance paid to parents of disabled children perhaps we should recover that as well?

After all if cancer patients are expected to use up all their savings/ assets I don't see why parents of children with disabilities should get away scot free.


----------



## Thirsty

> A woman with a family home in Dublin worth €700k which would easily command a rent of about €3,500 a month is lying idle.


I doubt that many of those who are currently homeless could afford such a rent.



> So if a house at €3,500 per month becomes available, the person taking that may be vacating a house at €2,000 a month and so on


Most unlikely - rent payment is a very price sensitive item in the household budget.  Most tenants will look for the lowest rent they can achieve commensurate with the location/space they need.  

Unlike mortgage payments where purchasers will often stretch their budgets to get extra space/better location etc., on the understanding that though it might stretch them now, over time that will improve.  Tenants never have that cushion.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Thirsty said:


> Just curious, Brendan if your proposal extends to those needing Hospice care also? It costs around 4k per week for Hospice care - should that be recovered from the persons estate?
> 
> What about folks who aren't terminally ill but need respite or convalescence - does that become a bill to be paid after death?



Good questions. 

The general principle is that the state should encourage people to provide for themselves. Where they can provide for themselves, they should do so and not rely on the state to pay it. 

The state should pay only where the person can't afford it.  

This principle extends to healthcare.  I have used the public hospital system and I haven't been charged. I had to volunteer the €100 which I was supposed to pay. It's crazy. I should have been charged the full cost of the treatment I received.  

The children issue is a bit more complex.  Children can't provide for themselves.  So they should not be expected to. That is why we pay for their education.  

But if an adult can pay for their medical treatment, their nursing home care etc., then they should do so.  I will repeat. I should not pay for your nursing home care, so that you can leave your assets to  your children. 

And I repeat that this is only one issue. 

The bigger issue at the moment is leaving perfectly good houses which could accommodate people empty. We should be encouraging the owners to put them back into use. 

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

Thirsty said:


> Just curious, Brendan if your proposal extends to those needing Hospice care also?  It costs around 4k per week for Hospice care - should that be recovered from the persons estate?
> 
> What about folks who aren't terminally ill but need respite or convalescence - does that become a bill to be paid after death?
> 
> Care allowance paid to parents of disabled children perhaps we should recover that as well?
> 
> After all if cancer patients are expected to use up all their savings/ assets I don't see why parents of children with disabilities should get away scot free.



Thirsty - I think Brendan has already essentially answered that here:



Brendan Burgess said:


> But now that you mention it, people should pay for their own healthcare if they can afford it



I am pleased that this suggests that it is not just aimed at the aged and infirm. But it raises it own questions :

Should everyone be means tested for public healthcare ?

Should attachment orders (or something of that nature) be attached to the property of people who
avail of public healthcare? They can pay after they die.

Should we abandon the notion of universal services across the board or only in healthcare ?

What might be the broader (perhaps unintended) consequences of the application of this principle - including but not limited to economic consequences ?

Should we abandon the notion of a society with shared risks and shared contributions ? Or should this be left to the private sector (insurance?)?

If I have understood it all wrong and this not the principle proposed, why in the case of one aspect of healthcare (paid for by taxation) does the person face having having to lose all there property to pay nursing home costs while others in the community who are not afflicted with disability get off scott free (ie, pass on their full inheritance)?

Brendan's proposal seems to be a matter of principle rather than cost because he has avoided any discussion of reforming the funding model for Fair Deal -(eg, by increased contributions and/or a levy on all estates).

Finally, as regards the linking of Fair Deal to the housing issue, Brendan seems to continue to avoid endorsing the "incentive model", which would arguably be more effective, not least because it would be realistically implementable. I wonder if this suggests that the underlying issue is an ideological objection to Fair Deal, and that the housing issue represented a convenient hook on which to hang it?

Over to Brendan ? 

Edit: Sorry Brendan - I posted this before seeing your reply to Thirsty above where you have addressed some of these matters.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> The general principle is that the state should encourage people to provide for themselves. Where they can provide for themselves, they should do so and not rely on the state to pay it.
> 
> The state should pay only where the person can't afford it.



We have a progressive taxation system. People pay tax towards providing the public health system, which they may or may not need at any point in time. It is effectively equivalent to insurance. Are you saying that those "who can afford it" should not claim if they can pay for it themselves? Should this apply to private insurance also?

Or those who can afford to pay to pay for their childrens' education - Should they not use the public system?

Perhaps the health element in tax should be separated out into a discrete fund but that is a different matter.

You should have been charged the appropriate fees for your use of public healthcare.These would have represented a contribution towards the cost.

Perhaps people with means should be expected to pay a proportion towards their treatment. But this should be on a fair and rational basis - rather than a "loser loses it all" basis, as you seem to be suggesting in relation to nursing home care.


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> The general principle is that the state should encourage people to provide for themselves. Where they can provide for themselves, they should do so and not rely on the state to pay it.



I don't see anything in your proposal to encourage people to provide for themselves.
I see plenty in your proposal which will encourage people *not *to make provision for themselves, in the certain knowledge that the state will pickup 100% of the tab.
Why make provision for yourself if your will end up in the same situation as if you had not done???



> The state should pay only where the person can't afford it.



Why? They had ample opportunity in their lifetime to make provision for themselves. 
They should have done so and not relied on the state to pay.

Either we are all in this together or we are not. If we are not in this together, fine, the state should not provide healthcare free to anyone except children. The state should not provide nurisng home care to anyone, either in whole or part funded.
The people going into nursing homes now were paying taxes for decades before that. 
Show me the balance sheet of what they put in and what they took out then tell me that you are paying for their care. You are not, you are paying for the care of all those who did not make provision for themselves.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Early Riser said:


> a "loser loses it all" basis, as you seem to be suggesting in relation to nursing home care.



What have I proposed? 

An amendment to the Fair Deal Scheme so that those in receipt of it should rent out their houses.  This will make more accommodation available in time of great scarcity and it will reduce the cost to the state. 

This is far better than leaving the house empty and getting me to pay for your care when you can well afford it. In the vast majority of cases, they will still leave plenty of assets to their children. 

That would not involved a  "loser loses it all".


Thirsty asked about the principle and we should discuss the principle.    We are not paying anything near enough in taxes to provide for our pensions, health care and elderly care.  Yet we expect high pensions, health care and to be able to leave our homes and other assets to our children.


Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

odyssey06 said:


> Show me the balance sheet of what they put in and what they took out then tell me that you are paying for their care. You are not, you are paying for the care of all those who did not make provision for themselves.



Hi Odyssey 

I fully agree that the system we have encourages dependency.  I have written and spoken on this often: 

https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/we-must-dismantle-our-culture-of-dependency.200086/

But the balance sheet is €200 billion of national debt and underprovision of €300 billion for state and OAPs. 

One of the advantages of encouraging people to pay for themselves is that they would realise the true cost of it.

Brendan
*https://www.askaboutmoney.com/threads/we-must-dismantle-our-culture-of-dependency.200086/

*


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Overall I would like a system where the PRSI that people pay go into a fund in their own name to pay for their pension and unemployment benefit. 

Those who never work and never contribute to a fund would get a lot less than they are getting now in non-contributory benefits.

Those who work should be prioritised in terms of housing - location and quality.

And, those who can pay for their nursing home care, should do so. 

But the fact that our social welfare system encourages people not to work, should not be a reason for not reforming the Fair Deal Scheme. 

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> One of the advantages of encouraging people to pay for themselves is that they would realise the true cost of it.



Not if half the population isn't paying a cent and expects the other half to pay everything for them AND pay their their own way. Only so much weight can be borne by the load. This proposal puts even more strain on the people who are already shouldering the whole weight therefore I cannot agree with it.
I'm not sure which will collapse the system sooner:
(a) Too much strain overloading the people bearing the load.
(b) Proposals that drive people from the side bearing the load, to the side enjoying a free ride.

You have to leave the people trying to make their own way with something.
Or else why bother?

If you want to talk about proposals that encourages ALL the people to pay for themselves, then I'm all ears.

If you want to talk about proposals that just look at putting more strain on the people trying to pay their own way, I refer you to my earlier point. I cannot agree with that.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi Odyssey

I have made many points about reducing the strain. In particular cutting non-contributory social welfare and putting everyone's PRSI into an account in their own name. 

I said last week on the radio that the dole should be abolished for anyone under the age of 26. If they are not prepared to work, then they should not be getting social welfare. Of course under my proposal, if someone had been working and had a PRSI fund in place, they could draw that down.

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> But the fact that our social welfare system encourages people not to work, should not be a reason for not reforming the Fair Deal Scheme.



If we're reforming the Fair Deal Scheme, let's talk about the 50% of people contributing nothing TOO, rather than just seeing what more blood we can squeeze from the stone that's already contributing 80% of income + 7.5% of assets + 7.5% of the value of their home multiplied by three.



> I have made many points about reducing the strain. In particular cutting non-contributory social welfare and putting everyone's PRSI into an account in their own name. I said last week on the radio that the dole should be abolished for anyone under the age of 26. If they are not prepared to work, then they should not be getting social welfare.



I agree with all of these... but I think you need to connect the strands together.
We need to get some reforms onto the table first that lessen the strain... any idea being put out there that's just is about putting more strain on I cannot agree with. There has to be a balancing.

And in the current climate, anything that gives the Minister for Housing an excuse to divert attention away from hammering him over the tens of thousands of homes not being built is a bad idea (aside from the particular merits of the scheme which we can agree or disagree on).


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> Thirsty asked about the principle and we should discuss the principle. We are not paying anything near enough in taxes to provide for our pensions, health care and elderly care. Yet we expect high pensions, health care and to be able to leave our homes and other assets to our children.



Yes, and many of us have accepted this issue of funding. It needs to be done fairly in relation to Fair Deal. I have several times spoken about increasing the contribution from the PPR. You have ignored this and persisted in a proposal that would raise substantially less money but would put enormous extra stress on many individuals and their families at a time which is, for many, already very stressful (I  don't know if you have ever dealt with supporting someone with acquired disability?).

As for raising more funding generally, you also ignore the proposal for a levy on all estates after death. If you don't perchance suffer a disability you get off scott free. Yes the "loser loses it all" as they are the only ones who pay directly - up to a limit but a limit which is arbitrary and can be changed.

As for the housing aspect of it, you have also ignored the incentive proposal, which seems much more feasible and practical. So I wonder if this is a red herring.



Brendan Burgess said:


> One of the advantages of encouraging people to pay for themselves is that they would realise the true cost of it.



An advantage of a contribution towards costs is that it discourages excessive, inappropriate use. That is quite different from getting people to "pay for themselves". In the context of a public system funded through taxation that is a "loser loses it all" approach.

(Does the health system need to be reformed? Yes, but that is completely different)



Brendan Burgess said:


> But now that you mention it, people should pay for their own healthcare if they can afford it.
> 
> Brendan





Brendan Burgess said:


> Not at all. If I have assets of €300k when I go into a nursing home, I am not financially vulnerable. I can pay my own way.



I find "the loser loses it all" works for me for as an aide memoire for this principle. I don't know why you object to it.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> Where they can provide for themselves, they should do so and not rely on the state to pay it.
> 
> The state should pay only where the person can't afford it.




So the people who can pay for themselves pay for the people who can't pay for themselves.

Also, the people who can pay for themselves should pay for the themselves.  

The people who can pay for themselves might have thought when they were paying taxes that they were paying for themselves as well as the people who can't pay for themselves. 

This needs to be explained to them


----------



## twofor1

Brendan Burgess said:


> I will repeat. I should not pay for your nursing home care, so that you can leave your assets to  your children.
> 
> And I repeat that this is only one issue.
> 
> The bigger issue at the moment is leaving perfectly good houses which could accommodate people empty. We should be encouraging the owners to put them back into use.
> 
> Brendan



I agree, you should not pay so my children can inherit more, and presumably my children would have no issue inheriting less once I was looked after.

I agree we should be *encouraging* owners to put vacant homes back into use.

But compelling the elderly to rent their vacant homes is not the answer for the numerous reasons already pointed out by many here.

 Increasing both the 7.5% contribution and the 3 year cap has to be done to meet the ever increasing cost of Fair Deal.

Apart from the tax relief on rental income being considered by minister Murphy for those *who can and want to rent*, an incentive could also be introduced for those *who want* to sell but are discouraged as the proceeds of the sale are assessed indefinitely, whereas if they keep the house it is disregarded after 3 years.

Would such incentives not be far simpler and compassionate way of putting many of these vacant homes back into use ?

Those who for whatever reason want to keep their family home unoccupied can continue to do so.


----------



## twofor1

odyssey06 said:


> If we're reforming the Fair Deal Scheme, let's talk about the 50% of people contributing nothing TOO, rather than just seeing what more blood we can squeeze from the stone that's already contributing 80% of income + 7.5% of assets + 7.5% of the value of their home multiplied by three.



Without a doubt, there are some freeloaders who contribute nothing and get the benefit of everything, that unfortunately is always going to be the way.

But there are also many who worked hard all their lives in less well paid jobs, lived in rented accommodation etc and after a lifetime of work still have nothing other than 80% of their state pension to contribute. I have no issue with these people receiving state support.

What definitely needs to be included in any reform of Fair Deal is more stringent measures to ensure all income and assets are declared.


http://www.independent.ie/business/...r-of-people-underdeclare-assets-35404772.html


----------



## Gordon Gekko

I vehemently disagree with your view on this Brendan.

Applying the same logic, a "wealthy" person should receive no State support for healthcare or pension until his/her asset base is exhausted.

It's something I'd expect from Boyd-Barrett, not Burgess!

And in any event, I suspect it's the squeezed middle who'd fall victim to your suggestion, as Fair Deal doesn't make sense for wealthy people.


----------



## Protocol

Slim said:


> I think we need to look at the whole picture realistically: The social insurance model was never designed to pay for nursing home care - pension and unemployment yes but not residential NH care. General taxation was designed to pay for, as well as everything else, basic health care. The model of health care has developed over the last few decades, driven by medical and scientific research to the level we are approaching, which is laying massive costs on public health systems. General taxation has not kept up with the contribution needed to fund this, in a sustainable way. The NHS is under incredible pressure an is in danger of breaking apart.



There is an economics literature about what insurance should be private and what should be social.

Note that in Germany people do pay compulsory long-term care insurance.

The SI system in Germany is as follows:

Health insurance = 7.3% ee + 7.3% er = 14.6% [employees pay an extra cont, so 8.5%]
pension insurance = 9.35% ee + 9.35% er = 18.7%
UN insurance = 1.5% ee +1.5% er = %
LT care insurance = 1.275% + 1.275% = 2.55%, with childless workers paying an extra 0.25% on top = 1.525%

Total is approx 21%.


----------



## Protocol

I will get out my copy of Nicholas Barr _Economics of the Welfare State_, and see what it says about LT care.

Page 178 - ".....LT care is a suitable case for social insurance."

Although he goes on to say it's an unresolved area.


----------



## Gordon Gekko

I note that Eoghan Murphy has clarified that the elderly in nursing home care will NOT be hit with any Vacant Home Tax.

A welcome move.

The tax code is full of exemptions for people who are forced to move out of their home; the State recognises that a tax penalty shouldn't arise in such circumstances.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

odyssey06 said:


> idea being put out there that's just is about putting more strain on I cannot agree with.



There is no strain. They have a valuable asset which they are not using.  It should be used to pay their expenses rather than impose the bill on me. And I don't want to pay the bill either for those who won't pay their mortgage or who can work but won't.  But the failure to tackle one does not mean that we should not tackle the others.

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> the State recognises that a tax penalty shouldn't arise in such circumstances.



Where is the tax penalty? 

People who are capable of working should work.
People who are capable of earning an income through letting a property should do so.

Brendan


----------



## Gordon Gekko

Brendan Burgess said:


> Where is the tax penalty?
> 
> People who are capable of working should work.
> People who are capable of earning an income through letting a property should do so.
> 
> Brendan



A "Vacant Home Tax" is being floated by Minister Murphy. However, he has clarified that nursing home residents would be exempted from any such charge.

In much the same way that PPR Relief or the Dwelling House Exemption provide concessions for forced absences, the elderly will be protected.

Should recipients of social welfare be forced to take lodgers in? Where would this stop?


----------



## Early Riser

Gordon Gekko said:


> A "Vacant Home Tax" is being floated by Minister Murphy. However, he has clarified that nursing home residents would be exempted from any such charge.
> 
> In much the same way that PPR Relief or the Dwelling House Exemption provide concessions for forced absences, the elderly will be protected.
> 
> Should recipients of social welfare be forced to take lodgers in? Where would this stop?



Gordon, did you ever get the impression of being wound up ?


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> Should recipients of social welfare be forced to take lodgers in? Where would this stop?



Hi Gordon

I was discussing this thread with a friend of mine. 

He lives in a three bed house in a very lettable which he owns outright. 

He is on Jobseekers Allowance and when they visited him and found he had a tenant, they said they would have to reduce the social welfare, so he got rid of the tenant.

So the answer to your question is  "Absolutely yes.".  A person with two spare rooms in a mortgage-free house in Dublin probably should not be getting any social welfare. 

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

jjm said:


> People who are working and in good jobs who have a spare room could also take in a tenant and help solve the housing crises just as good an idea as asking someone who cannot work or look after themselves to solve the housing crises,



We are not paying social welfare to people who are working and in good jobs. 

We should pay social welfare only to people who have no other source of income. If someone has a source of income but chooses not to exploit it, then they should not be getting social welfare. 

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

*From “The Daily Chronicle”*

_Gardai were called to a house in a South Dublin suburb this morning when a member of the public reported suspicious activity. Following the discovery of a body, the scene was sealed off and a murder investigation commenced. Family members have been contacted and are understandably distraught.


Subsequently a well known economic commentator criticised the investigation. "From what I understand the house in question is in a desirable neighbourhood and mortgage free. I should not be paying the Gardai to investigate the crime while the family have assets to pay for it themselves”, he said. “Those who can afford to pay should do so”. 


He then queried if they had arranged to rent the house as we have a housing crisis. “It's immoral to have a system which encourages them to leave it empty”, he insisted.

Listeners were at first bemused but he then went on to explain that “it is as if we had shortages of food in Ireland and we were paying some farmers not to produce food. The freeloader culture should be tackled.”

_


----------



## Thirsty

You know I was being more than a bit 'tongue-in-cheek' when I suggested that those who need Hospice care, or cancer treatment or parents of children with disabilities should be made to repay those costs from their estate.

But if what you propose comes to pass and I find I am terminally ill, I will save both the state and my children a bucket load of money & just take my own life..... problem solved.


----------



## Dan Murray

Thirsty said:


> But if what you propose comes to pass and I find I am terminally ill, I will save both the state and my children a bucket load of money & just take my own life..... problem solved.



Fair enuff - so long as whatever emergency services, post-mortem, coroner's court and all other related costs are deducted from your estate. There's no way that I should be paying for your decision to your Quietus make....


----------



## AlbacoreA

Brendan Burgess said:


> ...
> We cannot leave houses empty during a housing crisis. We have to get over the complexities involved in either selling the house or letting it out.
> ....





Brendan Burgess said:


> ....An amendment to the Fair Deal Scheme so that those in receipt of it should rent out their houses. ..



The problem with that is the Govt has consistently shown itself unable to manage the private rental market. (or housing). Either deliberately or not. 
Everything they do makes the shortage worse and encourages property to leave the private long term rental market. 
They've stripped all rights and protection from the LL making its a undesirable business for many.

So how on earth is it good idea for elderly people in care should be LLs or the Govt should manage it for them. 
Ever try to get a local authority help as LL? Good luck with that. 

So then sell it. Consider then how long it takes the legal process to sort out the mess when people go into care and leave property, even if they die it takes forever. 
So who will manage the property in the meanwhile. Who pays to up grade it to a required standard etc. 

Its a minefield.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

AlbacoreA said:


> The problem with that is the Govt has consistently shown itself unable to manage the private rental market. (or housing). Either deliberately or not.





AlbacoreA said:


> Its a minefield.



Fully agree with both of these, but they are not arguments for not doing this. 

Sure the governments and society have messed up housing.  They have made it very difficult for landlords to operate.  But that does not mean that empty houses should be made available to rent if we are paying the costs of the accommodation of the owners of those properties. It means that we should make it easier to rent properties and easier to get rid of tenants. 

It is a minefield. But again, we should not be afraid to tackle difficult problems.  One of the arguments used against this proposal is that some of the houses would be difficult to let. Maybe so, but most would be easy to let.  And the legislation should be changed to make properties easier to let. 

Brendan


----------



## AlbacoreA

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scorpion_and_the_Frog

They really are. The govt has created a toxic environment for small LLs. Anyone getting involved with this can expect to be royally shafted.


----------



## Early Riser

It seems like that a relatively benign, and possibly practical, suggestion of incentives for people in Fair Deal is provoking some wrath. Imagine if a government were to propose a punitive, impractical and unimplementable "solution".

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/nursing-homes-and-empty-houses-1.3188793


----------



## Early Riser

I think the folk memory of Ernest Blythe would deter Fine Gael (or any other party) from considering the punitive approach:


*From The Irish Times, 2008, An Irishman's Diary*

Blythe was the Cumann na nGaedhael finance minister who, in 1924, cut a shilling off the old-age pension - a move that haunted his party and its Fine Gael successor for a generation.

The cut in the old age pension undermined the popularity of Cosgrave's government and contributed in no small measure to the success at the polls of the newly formed Fianna Fáil party when it contested its first election in June 1927. De Valera's new party won 26 per cent of the vote, just a couple of percentage points less than Cumann na nGaedhael.

(BY 1932) the by now notorious cut in the old-age pension, a deteriorating economic situation and the government's continued reliance on emergency security legislation only served to alienate voters as the election approached.

In a desperate attempt to hold on to power, Cumann na nGaedhael ran probably the most vicious negative advertising campaign seen in Irish politics during the 1932 election. Newspaper adverts declared that the "communists and gunmen" were voting for Fianna Fáil and claimed that the choice before the people was one of "sanity or suicide". The strategy failed. When the devil you know was notorious for cutting a shilling off the old-age pension, many voters decided to take a chance with the devil they didn't know, or at least didn't know that well.

Fianna Fáil won 44 per cent of the vote and de Valera was elected president of the executive council with Labour support, marking the start of 16 years of uninterrupted power.

*In 2004, eighty years after the 1924 budget, Enda Kenny told the Dáil: "the late Ernest Blythe took a shilling from old-age pensioners and the repercussions, in political terms, against Cumann na Gaedhael and the Fine Gael Party lasted for 60 years".*

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-1.899488


----------



## T McGibney

Early Riser said:


> https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/nursing-homes-and-empty-houses-1.3188793





> If we really care the housing crisis can be solved without barbarity towards older people.



Quite.  

I'm staggered by the shameless barbarity of some of the suggestions here. You too will grow old, that is if they don't haul you off for lethal injection at your first signs of vulnerability


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi Tommy and Early Riser

I have not seen any suggestions here which meet any reasonable definition of "barbarity"? Could you maybe clarify these comments? 

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> Hi Tommy and Early Riser



I don't believe I have used that term, Brendan. Could you point to the post ?


----------



## T McGibney

Early Riser said:


> I don't believe I have used that term, Brendan. Could you point to the post ?


You didn't.  The quote was from the letter you linked, hence I quoted that link in my post.

The idea of forcing a vulnerable elderly person to clear their home of their assorted belongings before they enter nursing care, and then to rent their home to strangers thus blocking their subsequent access to the property for their own enjoyment is barbarous.

An elderly relative of my own entered nursing home care last year, didn't like it and after a period of several months there made alternative arrangements and is now living once again at home - at least for the moment.

She was never expected to do so and no-one knows how long it will last but at least she has some autonomy over her life choices.

She's living in a rent pressure zone.

The idea of forcing a family on social welfare who have lost a child to illness or suicide to rent out that child's room to a stranger or face losing their welfare entitlements is equally barbarous.


----------



## Early Riser

T McGibney said:


> You didn't.




Tommy, I don't know if you have been following the thread but I am absolutely opposed to Brendan' s proposal for a "stick" approach to getting Fair Deal properties onto the rental market. I do not have an objection in principle to incentives, which individuals can opt into as they wish - provided they are incentives and not disguised sticks.

The letter I linked (the author's sentiments, not mine) seem to suggest hostility to any approach, carrot or stick.

Your elderly relative's example illustrates the reality very well and I have no doubt that variations of this theme are widespread. It involves people rather than economics.


----------



## T McGibney

Early Riser said:


> Tommy, I don't know if you have been following the thread but I am absolutely opposed to Brendan' s proposal for a "stick" approach to getting Fair Deal properties onto the rental market. I do not have an objection in principle to incentives, which individuals can opt into as they wish - provided they are incentives and not disguised sticks.
> 
> The letter I linked (the author's sentiments, not mine) seem to suggest hostility to any approach, carrot or stick.


I agree and I'm with you 100% on this, but in an environment where a State body has set up a website to rat on your neighbour if their house appears empty, the line between incentives and disguised sticks has already been crossed with fanfare.

The letter you linked exposed the whole thing very succinctly.


----------



## odyssey06

T McGibney said:


> The idea of forcing a family on social welfare who have lost a child to illness or suicide to rent out that child's room to a stranger or face losing their welfare entitlements is equally barbarous.



I think 'callous' would be more the thing than 'barbarous' ... I think the barbarians went in for collective living...

Sometimes we have to be callous e.g. in conducting the cost benefit analysis of a new medicine or procedure... I don't think this is one of those times however.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Early Riser said:


> I don't believe I have used that term, Brendan. Could you point to the post ?



Apologies

Tommy quoted you in this post so I had assumed it was you  who had used the word. 

In fact, it seems to have been the Irish Times. 



Early Riser said:


> Imagine if a government were to propose a punitive, impractical and unimplementable "solution".



"punitive" is much less harsh.  Although it's not remotely punitive. No one is being punished.  If someone doesn't want to rent out their home, they are under no obligation to do so. But then I am under no obligation to pay the cost of their nursing home.

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

T McGibney said:


> An elderly relative of my own entered nursing home care last year, didn't like it and after a period of several months there made alternative arrangements and is now living once again at home



Tommy

That is such a rare occurrence that it could be dealt with very easily.

And don't forget, they don't have to vacate their home at all. They don't have to rent their home at all. They can pay their nursing home care themselves. 



T McGibney said:


> The idea of forcing a family on social welfare who have lost a child to illness or suicide to rent out that child's room to a stranger



Now you are really looking for crazy examples to make an argument. 

The principle is clear. If someone can pay their own way, they should do so. If someone has a spare room in their house and they don't let it, then they should not be getting social welfare. If you want to come up with some exceptions to this principle, go right ahead. But you don't reject an idea you don't like, because you can come with a rare combination of events where it might be hard.

Brendan


----------



## T McGibney

Brendan Burgess said:


> "punitive" is much less harsh.  Although it's not remotely punitive. No one is being punished.  If someone doesn't want to rent out their home, they are under no obligation to do so. But then I am under no obligation to pay the cost of their nursing home.



It is indeed punitive if they lose a valuable entitlement by their exercise of that choice. And targetting the vulnerable elderly - or indeed bereaved families - in such a manner is indeed barbarous in my book.


----------



## T McGibney

Brendan Burgess said:


> That is such a rare occurrence that it could be dealt with very easily.



It apparently not rare, Brendan. The person who told me the story, who is themselves as old as the lady in question, didn't bat an eyelid.


----------



## T McGibney

Brendan Burgess said:


> Now you are really l*ooking for crazy examples* to make an argument.
> 
> The principle is clear. If someone can pay their own way, they should do so.* If someone has a spare room in their house and they don't let it, then they should not be getting social welfare.* If you want to come up with some exceptions to this principle, go right ahead. But you don't reject an idea you don't like, because you can come with a rare combination of events where it might be hard.



It's not at all rare for families to lose children. Parents grieve for these lost children all their lives. You want them banned from claiming social welfare if they object to letting out their child's room to strangers. There's something disturbing about that.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> "punitive" is much less harsh. Although it's not remotely punitive. No one is being punished. If someone doesn't want to rent out their home, they are under no obligation to do so. But then I am under no obligation to pay the cost of their nursing home.






Brendan Burgess said:


> it should be an absolute requirement- if they choose not to rent out the house, then they should not get any assistance towards nursing home fees.





Brendan Burgess said:


> Maybe then impute a rent of 10% of the value of the house. So that if they choose not to rent it or can't get around to it, they don't lose the Fair Deal Scheme, but they just get less.



Given the stressful circumstances that very many individuals and/or their families find themselves in around the Fair Deal circumstances (most broadly) then, even after further reflection, I will stick with "punitive". I cannot think of any lesser or milder description. I do not think it is your intention but I can understand that others may react more strongly in emotion and/or terminology.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Early Riser said:


> Given the stressful circumstances that very many individuals and/or their families find themselves in around the Fair Deal circumstances



Hi Early Riser

Lots of things are very stressful.  Divorce, redundancy, poverty, unemployment. 

We don't say to them: "look it's ok, you are going through a tough time, there is no need for you to pay your way although you have loads of money or assets"

Is it punitive to say to someone who has no home but €1m in investments, that they don't qualify for the Fair Deal Scheme because they happen to have cash rather than an empty home?   We are not punishing people for going into a home. We are not forcing anyone to rent their home.

We are simply saying: The taxpayer will contribute to the cost of your nursing home care if you can't afford it yourself.  If you can afford through renting out your home, then you should do so. 

Brendan


----------



## twofor1

Brendan Burgess said:


> We are simply saying.....................



I don’t know about the ‘’We’’

Some here me included broadly agree with incentives to encourage those who want to and are able to rent their homes.

I don’t think anyone agrees with compelling the elderly to rent their homes.


----------



## Sophrosyne

Brendan Burgess said:


> A case yesterday really brought it home to me. A woman with a family home in Dublin worth €700k which would easily command a rent of about €3,500 a month is lying idle.
> 
> She has an income of about €40,000 a year. So the state is paying about €40,000 a year, and will reclaim €21,000 a year from the eventual sale of the house. Her two sons will inherit the house - and as it happens neither need the money.



Your thoughts on this subject seem to be coloured by that example and then you shot from the hip without thinking of the wider consequences or conducting a modicum of research.

It is all very fine expounding a principle, it is quite another if you’re the one who has to legislate for it and sell the principle to voters.

To account for different situations, some common and some rare, there would be so many ifs and ands and buts …


----------



## thedaddyman

So let's suppose I have to put my mother in a nursing home and she if forced to rent out her house to pay for it. Let's get practical around this for a second

Who is going to manage the renting of the house as me and my sister live a number of hours away?
Where are we and her grand children meant to stay when we go to visit my mother, hotels? Will that be a tax-deductible expense in this new solution to the housing crisis?
What if my mother comes out of a nursing home, perhaps she gets better, can we evict the tenant and move her back into her own home?
What if the house can't be rented, out in the coutry or attached to the farm ran by the son. Does anyone have any faith that those circumstances are handled correctly by the state?
And when she passes away and we want to sell the house, are we entitled to evict the tenants or are we forced to become reluctant landlords like many in negative equity. if we evict, where do the tenants go? will this create a viscious cycle of short term lets for people
Where can we have the wake?
If we can't evict, the house can't be sold, does that not reduce supply and drive up prices?

This idea is like something out of 1980's communist Romania. What's next, force them to take in a lodger to pay for medical treatment?


----------



## Gordon Gekko

A home is not an investment though, Brendan. It is an asset, obviously, but its value is generally ignored when assessing an individual's financial position.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Sophrosyne said:


> Your thoughts on this subject seem to be coloured by that example and then you shot from the hip without thinking of the wider consequences or conducting a modicum of research.



Hi Sop

That is a very accurate way of characterising the way I think and write about things. Most of my posts are obviously "shot from the hip"


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> It is an asset, obviously, but its value is generally ignored when assessing an individual's financial position.



It is generally ignored.  But it should not be.  

Gordon with €1m in shares and no house, is in the same position as Brendan in a €1m house with no shares.  People make a psychological segregation of them which has no basis.

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> We are not punishing people for going into a home. We are not forcing anyone to rent their home.



Hi Brendan

Some of the many individual complexities around situations where people need to avail of nursing home care have been outlined by several contributors to this thread and the difficulty that renting out would entail. I have no doubt that there are many more. I am not going to-hash previous posts.

If the aim is to facilitate people to rent with a view to helping in the housing crisis, there are positive, carrot ways to achieve that. That you seem to consistently ignore carrot approaches gives the impression (rightly or wrongly) that this is not your primary motivation -rather a gripe (excuse the terminology) about people freeloading in some way through Fair Deal. I think most of the contributors  have accepted that Fair Deal is imperfect and could be reformed (I certainly do),so that is not the issue.

Rather it is the consistent focus on one approach that I, and apparently many others,regard as punitive.

For me the aim of any reform should be (a) to make the scheme more sustainable financially and (b) to make it more flexible and responsive to individual circumstances. I certainly think that there are other approaches to the first that are more likely to be politically attainable and, in my view, more humane. I think your proposal runs directly contrary to (b).

There are always anomalies in any scheme but I doubt that freeloading is a major one in Fair Deal. I would certainly like to see the evidence.


----------



## Delboy

There are hundreds/thousands of homes all over Ireland belong to millionaires who aren't tax resident in Ireland and who only spend a small part of the year here. They could easily stay in hotels anytime they fly in.
Why aren't the Govt talking about forcing those houses to be let out?

Here's 1 for FG to start with
https://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0906/472692-denis-obrien/

The main issue here being the shortage of accommodation and FD is being used as cover to potentially increase supply as well as get more revenue in for the Govt.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

thedaddyman said:


> So let's suppose I have to put my mother in a nursing home and she if forced to rent out her house to pay for it. Let's get practical around this for a second
> 
> Who is going to manage the renting of the house as me and my sister live a number of hours away?


There are plenty of people renting out houses well away from where they live. They used agent.



> Where are we and her grand children meant to stay when we go to visit my mother, hotels? Will that be a tax-deductible expense in this new solution to the housing crisis?



No. When you visit your mother, you look after you own accommodation. Or maybe move her into a nursing home close to you.



> What if my mother comes out of a nursing home, perhaps she gets better, can we evict the tenant and move her back into her own home?


It's a rare occurrence. And absolutely. The  lease agreement should be allowed to specify that if the house is required for the owner to move back in, they have to leave at 30 days' notice.



> What if the house can't be rented, out in the coutry or attached to the farm ran by the son. Does anyone have any faith that those circumstances are handled correctly by the state?


The house would then be sold.  What happens at present under the Fair Deal Scheme when the person dies?



> And when she passes away and we want to sell the house, are we entitled to evict the tenants or are we forced to become reluctant landlords like many in negative equity. if we evict, where do the tenants go? will this create a viscious cycle of short term lets for people


No, the tenant's lease would expire in the normal circumstances.  The executor can renew it or not as they see fit.



> Where can we have the wake?


Do without one or have it in your own house.



> If we can't evict, the house can't be sold, does that not reduce supply and drive up prices?


Not at all.



> This idea is like something out of 1980's communist Romania. What's next, force them to take in a lodger to pay for medical treatment?



As I have pointed out before calling an argument names is not a valid counter-argument.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Delboy said:


> Why aren't the Govt talking about forcing those houses to be let out?



Again, as I have pointed out before on many occasions - the fact that something might be wrong in some other part of the tax system or the housing system, does not mean that it's ok to leave these houses empty. 

If someone wants to leave a house empty, they probably should be allowed to do so. But I should not have to pay more taxes so that they can afford to leave their house empty.

Brendan


----------



## T McGibney

Delboy said:


> There are hundreds/thousands of homes all over Ireland belong to millionaires who aren't tax resident in Ireland and who only spend a small part of the year here. They could easily stay in hotels anytime they fly in.
> Why aren't the Govt talking about forcing those houses to be let out?
> 
> Here's 1 for FG to start with
> https://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0906/472692-denis-obrien/



Because those types would be likely to be rather more assertive than the average nursing home resident in defending their constitutional and human rights against assault by the State.


----------



## Andarma

thedaddyman said:


> So let's suppose I have to put my mother in a nursing home and she if forced to rent out her house to pay for it. Let's get practical around this for a second
> 
> Who is going to manage the renting of the house as me and my sister live a number of hours away?
> Where are we and her grand children meant to stay when we go to visit my mother, hotels? Will that be a tax-deductible expense in this new solution to the housing crisis?
> What if my mother comes out of a nursing home, perhaps she gets better, can we evict the tenant and move her back into her own home?
> What if the house can't be rented, out in the coutry or attached to the farm ran by the son. Does anyone have any faith that those circumstances are handled correctly by the state?
> And when she passes away and we want to sell the house, are we entitled to evict the tenants or are we forced to become reluctant landlords like many in negative equity. if we evict, where do the tenants go? will this create a viscious cycle of short term lets for people
> Where can we have the wake?
> If we can't evict, the house can't be sold, does that not reduce supply and drive up prices?
> 
> This idea is like something out of 1980's communist Romania. What's next, force them to take in a lodger to pay for medical treatment?


To add to this, who would be responsible for organising and paying for the necessary repairs and upgrades required to bring the property up to scratch for renting purposes? I would absolutely refuse to do this and I don't see how I could be compelled to do it. 

I must say that there are some quite disturbing ideas on this thread.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Andarma said:


> I would absolutely refuse to do this and I don't see how I could be compelled to do it.



You wouldn't be compelled to do it. You just wouldn't get the taxpayer to pay your nursing home care for you. 

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan - have you ever taken the Turing Test ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test


----------



## Andarma

That doesn't address the question of whose repsonsibility it might be to organise and pay for it. The person in the nursing home can't do it themself, so who should do it? The nursing home management?


----------



## AlbacoreA

Brendan Burgess said:


> ...
> Gordon with €1m in shares and no house, is in the same position as Brendan in a €1m house with no shares.  People make a psychological segregation of them which has no basis.
> ...



Value is not simply the cost of something.


----------



## Sarenco

Delboy said:


> The main issue here being the shortage of accommodation and FD is being used as cover to potentially increase supply as well as get more revenue in for the Govt.



For the avoidance of doubt, there is no government proposal along the lines being suggested by Brendan. 

The new Minister for Housing has, however, given notice that a "vacant homes tax" will be introduced shortly (although he has said that people in nursing homes will be exempt from this new tax).


----------



## AlbacoreA

Andarma said:


> That doesn't address the question of whose repsonsibility it might be to organise and pay for it. The person in the nursing home can't do it themself, so who should do it? The nursing home management?



The same people that caused or fueled (and continue to fuel) the current housing crisis.


----------



## Early Riser

Sarenco said:


> For the avoidance of doubt, there is no government proposal along the lines being suggested by Brendan.



Nor will there be, if there is a even a small modicum of political sense.


----------



## mathepac

Brendan Burgess said:


> And it's a huge problem to have homes lying vacant while people are in nursing homes.


Are there statistics to support this?  How many of the unfinished /uninhabited houses/holiday /2nd homes out there are the property of people in hospitals or nursing homes?


Brendan Burgess said:


> The primary one is the shortage of housing. I really think that we need to address this whatever way we can. We should not incentivise people to leave their homes vacant.


 There is no real housing shortage because there are empty houses aplenty that need to be occupied. How many of them are empty due to their elderly owners being in hospitals or nursing homes? What percentage of the so-called housing problem would attacking the rights of the old and infirm to own empty homes fix?

Let me posit a real scenario.

One son lives and works in America with his wife and children. Another son lives in Dublin with his wife and children. A single daughter lives and works in London. Each of them travels to see their mother who is in a nursing home in Co Cork, adjacent to the family home which is empty as the mother is a widow. All of the children, their spouses and their children travel "home" as often as they can to visit their mother/mother-in-law / Granny. Where do they stay? In a hotel or a B&B or in the home (not a just house, not just a property) they grew up in? What about other family members who visit from Donegal or Louth?

And BTW, the people in nursing homes and their families paid enough taxes between them and are making little if any call on what I paid down the years.


----------



## LS400

I have to admire your staunch position Brendan, as you haven't relented one bit. But for me it was your opening line of your first post which got my back up. Its something I would expect to hear from the not so clued in Politicians. This sector has nothing to do with the homeless crisis and is nothing more than the flipflopping that is currently going on in Government buildings.

I can tell you Greed, by everyone included, got us to where we are, so while your intentions are good, they are TOTALLY misplaced here. It has also been a very emotive topic by many here, and its for that reason have to ask the question, and I ask only because everything need to be on the table when discussing such a widely posted issue,  but do you have Kids, because this whole debate is family orientated. If you dont, then I can see your argument, because if I didnt have kids, I would be in your camp. 

Most people I believe, agree with the principle of pay your way, but because of the waste of public funds through out the years, the incentive to claim and stay on Social Welfare etc, I dont want anyone dictating what I do with my Family home. I have worked flamin hard for it... and I say now.. KEEP YOUR MITS OFF THIS, and concentrate on the real issues. This is nothing more than a smoke screen for the calamity Ireland is in.


----------



## T McGibney

The State created the housing crisis by enacting a range of planning and tax measures in 2009 that effectively shut down both the last vestiges of the building and property investment sectors and, by design, blocked the eventual recovery of both to normally sustainable levels once the worst of the economic crisis was over. 

This was all done at a time when the population of the country continued to rise.

No corrective action has been made in the intervening 9 years. Yes, nine whole years. So unsurprisingly the State and its apologists have been looking everywhere for scapegoats. 

First it was profiteering landlords, cue rent controls that have arbitrarily beggared the most decent of landlords who were letting below market rents and enriched the more unscrupulous ones who were extracting every last cent from their tenants.

Then they threatened to shut down self-catering tourism, a threat that appears to still stand.

And now they're after the old and the sick.

Election 2018 will be some fun. Here's a cheap prediction: Fine Gael will return to the Dáil with fewer seats than they had after their Election 2002 bloodbath.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

LS400 said:


> I have to admire your staunch position Brendan, as you haven't relented one bit.



Hi LS

Go back through the thread and look at the counter-arguments. Most are emotional.  It's probably to do with the Irish and property.  Don't touch my home, but please pay me for my accommodation in a nursing home so that I can afford to leave it empty.

Here are the emotional arguments which have no value in terms of the argument:
There are lots of empty houses and we are doing nothing about them, so we should do nothing about these. (We should do something about all empty houses.)
Denis O'Brien's house is empty. So what? We are not paying for his accommodation elsewhere.
This is barbaric - name calling isn't arguing
It would be politically unpopular - never a reason for not doing what is right
Some houses can't be let because of where they are and the condition they are in - fine rent out the houses which can be.
The government caused the housing crisis - not the people who are being encouraged to leave empty houses.
"Do you have kids Brendan?" - completely irrelevant as you show immediately with "If you dont, then I can see your argument, because if I didnt have kids, I would be in your camp." Whether you have kids or parents should not be relevant. (Mind you, it's the closest I have got to anyone agreeing with me.) You might like or dislike a particular proposal as a result, but we are arguing about what is good for society not what is good for you or for me.
It wouldn't be practical. Who would rent out the house?
You are picking on the old and the vulnerable. I also pick on the young and the vulnerable who are on Jobseekers Allowance when I call for that to be cut.
The family home is sacrosanct. 


So what are the arguments with some force?
It penalises people who have saved up to buy a house and pay off a mortgage, thus discouraging people from being responsible. The problem with this is that most of our taxes and public spending does this. I have been the loudest campaigner for cuts to non-contributory social welfare, so I understand the argument.

They have already paid enough taxes.  This might have some force if it were true. But it's not. One of the other posters has pointed out very articulately that the taxes were not designed to pay for nursing home care.

It's very upsetting for the people involved.  I am not unsympathetic having put my aunt in a nursing home recently. But renting out the house is not the upsetting part. It's the leaving of the home to go into a strange place.

Apologies if there was any argument which I omitted which had any force.

So, in short, people are arguing emotionally. As you say "the opening line got your back up".

Part of the reason the country is in the state it is in, is because we are not prepared to allow our politicians to make tough decisions in the interest of society as a whole.  And we will savage anyone who dares to challenge the conventional view.

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Just to be clear 

If there is a good rational, as distinct from emotional, argument to explain why you should pay for my father's nursing home while he could pay for it himself, then I would certainly change my mind. 

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> They have already paid enough taxes.  This might have some force if it were true. But it's not. One of the other posters has pointed out very articulately that the taxes were not designed to pay for nursing home care.



If the 'argument from design' has any merit, it would mean that the government should not pay for nursing home care for *any citizen*. Fair Deal or no Fair Deal.
The government clearly therefore thinks that it is legitimate to use taxes to pay for nursing home care.

Therefore I return to the point that they have already paid taxes and when this is taken into the balance along with the significant contribution they are making under the Fair Deal scheme it is wrong to ask them for any more.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

odyssey06 said:


> it would mean that the government should not pay for nursing home care for *any citizen*. Fair Deal or no Fair Deal.



I am sorry, but I don't follow that argument at all. 

My argument is that the state should pay for nursing home care for those who need it and can't afford to pay for it. 
They should not pay for nursing home care for people who can afford to pay for it. 

By the way, one point which has had very little mention, is the extraordinarily generous tax relief on nursing home fees. 

So even those whom I would refuse to allow into the Fair Deal Scheme would still be able to claim tax relief at their marginal rate on their fees.  

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> I am sorry, but I don't follow that argument at all.



I didn't follow the 'argument from design' either, but you seemed to think that "One of the other posters has pointed out very articulately that the taxes were not designed to pay for nursing home care."

In response, I am saying that if taxes were not designed to pay for nursing home care, why are some of my taxes being spent today on it???


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> Just to be clear
> If there is a good rational, as distinct from emotional, argument to explain why you should pay for my father's nursing home while he could pay for it himself, then I would certainly change my mind.



Because the state considers nursing home care to be a legitimate subject of state funding.
We are not talking about funding expensive holidays.

It will fund in full the nursing home care of those who are unable to fund it themselves.
It will seek a fair contribution from those who have means in proportion to the extent of those means.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> One of the other posters has pointed out very articulately that the taxes were not designed to pay for nursing home care.



Could you remind us what post or poster this was, Brendan? I am not sure what element of healthcare that taxes were designed to pay for ? Can you say or reference this ? I had thought the whole thing just developed piecemeal over the years, but maybe not. In other words were not taxes "designed" to pay for nursing home care just as much or as little as other elements of health care?

Did not the State from the start (or very early - I don't know the history) provide a form of nursing care publicly - initially the "County Homes" and subsequently public nursing homes through the Health Boards and then the HSE ? When these couldn't cope, those deemed in need of nursing care were re-directed to private nursing homes but could apply to the Health Boards for subvention. The funding for this was inadequate, the "means testing" almost totally arbitrary and the application of same seen widely as unfair.

Hence the arrival of Fair Deal which, as Slim pointed out, "was an innovative and compassionate scheme to assist people with end of life residential care".

Perhaps there should be a ring-fenced insurance (or tax) for health care generally. That is a different discussion. Tax for us effectively covers insurance for public healthcare. Nursing home care has always been part of healthcare. The fact that the HSE has largely farmed it out to private nursing homes in the past couple of decades is simply a financial matter - the private homes can provide it more cheaply than the public sector.

If you think we should only provide public health-care to people who pass (or fail) a means test - well I agree that is logically consistent but I don't agree with it. But there is no logical reason to single out nursing home care for the application of this principle. People who pay tax (our insurance) to cover the health service should, in my view, be able to avail of the service as much as those who pass/fail the means test.( Just as in education also - anyone can avail of public schooling).

Finally just to note, I thought there were many arguments of merit in the thread against your proposal (in that some of them may have been mine, perhaps colours my viewpoint slightly!). That you didn't accept them or agree with them is a separate matter. And I do not believe that anyone will be able to state an argument to make you change your mind as it is more an issue of ideology than logic (probably on both sides). I happen to believe in the principle of Fair Deal in the underlined quote from Slim above. I fully accept that the funding model needs to be reviewed to sustain this. I just think the piecemeal bit you propose here to be unworkable, quite arbitrary in practice,and punitive (in my opinion, of course). In short, contrary to Slim's principle.


----------



## thedaddyman

Brendan Burgess said:


> Just to be clear
> 
> If there is a good rational, as distinct from emotional, argument to explain why you should pay for my father's nursing home while he could pay for it himself, then I would certainly change my mind.
> 
> Brendan



What has emotions got to do with morality?. As a society we have a moral obligation to look after our vulnerable people. it's got nothing to do with money, it is the difference between right and wrong. I would not want to see Ireland turn into the kind of society you are proposing

I used to enjoy AAM, enjoy giving and getting advice on a range issues. However I am so angry at this thread that I am turning my back on AAM and will participate no more.. I believe your ego and media profile has overruled your heart and I want nothing else to do with this heartless soulless forum


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## LS400

I genuinely believe Brendan, your head/heart is trying to do the right thing, but there is so much more wrong with this Country and how it has been managed, that it seems like more Political slap dash to give the impression your doing something, about a genuine crisis by targeting the week and vulnerable.

Having also had someone close to me entering a nursing home, I can tell you it was wonderful to be able to return to his family home where in his lucid moments, normality returned even if only for a short while.

I do agree with you that it is a shame to see perfectly good properties lying idle, but can you blame people for not wanting to get involved with letting. Legislation has made being a LL toxic, when you have to hope they don't wreck the place, pay their rent or sue you without any repercussions, it's a joke, and you want to put folk through that!!

I don't know if you have Shane Ross on speed dial, but it does sound typical of a knee jerk solution while the real under lying problems continue.


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## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> If there is a good rational, as distinct from emotional, argument to explain why you should pay for my father's nursing home while he could pay for it himself, then I would certainly change my mind. Part of the reason the country is in the state it is in, is because we are not prepared to allow our politicians to make tough decisions in the interest of society as a whole.  And we will savage anyone who dares to challenge the conventional view.



Can you make a rational un-emotional argument as to why the state should be providing nursing home care for any of its citizens?

A purely rational argument could be made that anyone who has gone into a nursing home with Dementia or Alzheimers and isn't coming out should just be euthanized.  There is no purely rational argument that can be made against that without straying into the realm of emotions, values, morality, practicalities etc.
We could ask everybody at 40 to declare a living will. If you are in that situation do you want to (a) be euthanized so that you can pass on your inheritance or (b) do you want to place all your assets at the disposal of the state to take care of you until the end of your natural life?
I think we could have a lot of people opting for (a), especially those who think they will have significant assets to pass onto children.

There are reports that in Eskimo\Inuit cultures, that old people who felt they were becoming a burden walk out into the blizzard never to return; or the rest of the community decides for them and moves camp overnight leaving them behind. There's a word for it... Senicide.
What's the rational argument as to why that cultural mechanism is wrong???
Are the interests of that society rational?

Want to solve the housing crisis? Fine, bring in communal barrack style accomodation as long as it is safe, warm and hygenic.
There is no rational reason for people to be attached to the concept of having (either via owning it or renting) their own property, or bedroom for that matter. Once upon a time it was felt that one room was enough for a family; now more than 2 kids in a bedroom is forbidden and undignified. What changed? And was it rational?

So this argument doesn't come down to rationality. It comes down to values.
People place value on having their own space.
People place value on providing nursing home care so that those living out their end of days can do so in comfort and with dignity and without stress.
People on this thread have placed value on allowing people in nursing homes to retain control of their homes, to avoid a situation where they are left with nothing because of health issues - because they feel that that it would cause stress and be an affront to their dignity.
Unless we agree on the values we cannot have a rational argument about how to maximise the realisation of those values.
We can rationally work out the calculations for the person in this scenario as to whether the Fair Deal makes financial sense for them to sign up, because we agree on the value of money to them.

The challenge is not to convince people of the rationality of your proposal, but why they should assign a higher priority \ more importance to the values that you think it realises; than the alternatives.

I would further add that if people feel there is a trade off going on, or one value is overriding another, you will have to explain why this particular trade off is necessary \ essential. In this scenario they will point out that there are alternatives - compelling developers to build on zoned land, permitting bedsits, permitting taller buildings, reducing the number of people coming to RPZs - that have no trade offs or lesser tradeoffs, as far as they are concerned.
Why should we put people through X, when we can do Y instead?


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## LS400

@Daddyman,
I think your wrong to turn your back and say you will walk away.

That's the easy way out.
You have contributed well to many issues on AAM and rightly or wrongly anyone who posts, is entitled to defend their beliefs, and with that in mind, I would hope you re-consider.

I differ completely on this particular issue, but, have to hand to him for standing his ground and responding to every arrow that has been fired at him.


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Hi jjm, Sarenco et. al. 

Good points raised about the tax reliefs of the Fair Deal Scheme. I have moved them to this thread. 

* Some people would be better off opting out of the Fair Deal Scheme*

I had actually asked my friends if they would have been better off paying the nursing home fees themselves and not losing the 7.5% but they had done the maths and said no. I didn't check them. I will send on your comments.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

thedaddyman said:


> As a society we have a moral obligation to look after our vulnerable people



And I agree 100% with you. But people who can afford to pay their own nursing home fees are not financially vulnerable. 

Go back and look at the thread. One of the main criticisms of my suggestion was that this would reward people who never bought their own house and so could not contribute to the costs of their nursing home care.  I replied that we should pay for these people.

Just to be clear: 
I am prepared to pay increased taxes to pay for nursing home care for those who can't pay for it themselves.
I am not prepared to pay increased taxes for people who can pay for it themselves, so that their children will inherit the house tax-free. 

If you want to call that heartless and soulless. Fine. 

Brendan


----------



## Brendan Burgess

LS400 said:


> , but it does sound typical of a knee jerk solution while the real under lying problems continue.



As I have pointed out to someone else who suggested that, most of my posts are ill thought out, knee jerk solutions. 

Look - come up with real, logical, objections to my proposal. Instead of just hurling insults. 

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

odyssey06 said:


> Can you make a rational un-emotional argument as to why the state should be providing nursing home care for any of its citizens?



Absolutely. I will say it yes again. We are a society. We should pay for the nursing home care for those who can't afford to pay for it themselves. 

We should not pay for those who can.

Brendan


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> Absolutely. I will say it yes again. We are a society. We should pay for the nursing home care for those who can't afford to pay for it themselves. We should not pay for those who can.



"We are a society" is not a rational argument.
You are not making a rational argument here or even attempting to make one.
You are appealing to values.

We should not take away everything from people to pay for their healthcare - whether that's cancer treatment or nursing home care.
That is as rational an argument as the one you have just made.

If anything over the course of the discussion, my opposition to this proposal has crystallised and solidified.
I'll be clear. 
I totally oppose this proposal and if any political party even shows signs of seriously considering it, I will not vote for them. 
I think it is a proposal without any merit whatsoever, *I think in fact it is a toxic proposal of negative merit.*
It distracts attention away from the real causes of the housing crisis and the real solutions to the housing crisis and any real attempt to reform the Fair Deal scheme or our social security in general.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> Absolutely. I will say it yes again. We are a society. We should pay for the nursing home care for those who can't afford to pay for it themselves.
> 
> We should not pay for those who can.





Brendan Burgess said:


> Look - come up with real, logical, objections to my proposal. Instead of just hurling insults.



odyssey06 was making the point, I believe, that you have not provide a logical argument for singling out nursing home fees from other health fees.

We have a system of paying for nursing home called "Fair Deal". People who can pay pay towards it do so (in way that, by and large, they do not for hospital care). The system is imperfect and in need of reform. I haven't seen any argument against that. Everyone, here at least, seems to object to your proposal.

Leaving that specific point aside. You insist that your proposal is logical, rational, etc. Up to a point it is. But it is not based on logic - it is based on an ideological value - you are not prepared to pay your taxes towards nursing home fees who could pay it for themselves (including from their PPR*). I repeat, that is a value/ideology.I do not think it is a a particularly communitarian value, but that comes from my value system. There is no point demanding logical arguments to convince you to change your value system.

However, many here have advanced what are, in my opinion, very valid arguments based on their value systems, logic and emotional intelligence. You have dismissed or ignored many of these arguments (presumably because you reject the ideology rather than the argument, but I don't know). When dealing with real people (rather than, say, the storage of spare parts) I would be a lot more concerned about people who do not display emotion than those who do.

* EDIT : Not just from their PPR but the rental income (or imputed value) of their property while they are in nursing home care. You did not say so explicitly but deducing "logically" from your ideology I assume you would want them to exhaust all the value from their PPR before you would be willing to contribute from your taxes. Even if you didn't ,the "logic" of the ideology would lead inexorably to it. And from their to where ?


----------



## Brendan Burgess

Early Riser said:


> However, many here have advanced what are, in my opinion, very valid arguments based on their value systems, logic and emotional intelligence.



Hi8 Early Riser, I will repeat some of the arguments used.  

"There are lots of empty houses and we are doing nothing about them, so we should do nothing about these. (We should do something about all empty houses.)
Denis O'Brien's house is empty. So what? We are not paying for his accommodation elsewhere.
This is barbaric - name calling isn't arguing
It would be politically unpopular - never a reason for not doing what is right
Some houses can't be let because of where they are and the condition they are in - fine rent out the houses which can be.
The government caused the housing crisis - not the people who are being encouraged to leave empty houses.
"Do you have kids Brendan?" - completely irrelevant as you show immediately with "If you dont, then I can see your argument, because if I didnt have kids, I would be in your camp." Whether you have kids or parents should not be relevant. (Mind you, it's the closest I have got to anyone agreeing with me.) You might like or dislike a particular proposal as a result, but we are arguing about what is good for society not what is good for you or for me.
It wouldn't be practical. Who would rent out the house?
You are picking on the old and the vulnerable. I also pick on the young and the vulnerable who are on Jobseekers Allowance when I call for that to be cut.
The family home is sacrosanct."

I think you start with certain values and then work logically from there. 

I don't think any of the above are based on values. That is the point I am making. 

I start with the value that we should look after those who can't provide for themselves and work from there. But we should not pay for people who can afford to pay for themselves. 

What happened in this thread is that people reacted so negatively to having their view of the world challenged that they went off into a spate of arguments of no value.  Some Irish people can get irrational when it comes to anything to do with the home. Then add in an elderly person who has to go into a nursing home and the guilt (not justified) that their kids feel about it. And it has made a rational discussion very difficult.

I think if people sit back and reflect on it they might change their view. 

Brendan


----------



## The Horseman

Vacant homes of the elderly should not be "incentivized" to rent them out. People who have paid their taxes throughout their working careers should see some return on them. What you are suggesting is that people who can afford to pay should. Using this principle then existing young people could decide why bother making any effort to purchase a house if you are at risk of losing it in the future should you need to avail of the Fair Deal scheme changes you appear to want. The possible result is more people wishing to avail of state funded housing. (I appreciate this is a bit of a stretch but it is still possible).

The housing crisis is one which the govt and previous govts have allowed evolve either by intent or not. The State is now trying to abdicate it responsibility to house those who need to be housed on the private sector while at the same time dictating every facet of the process. Landlords are running a business, houses that are lying vacant are doing so for a reason. Part of the current housing crisis is due in no small part to the measures imposed by the govt.

People are afraid to rent out properties because of the horror stories about rogue tenants etc. What other business model forces the supplier to continue providing a service even when they are not being paid. Tenants can stop paying rent and live in a property for months before they can be evicted.

The majority of people are decent and would be fair as both landlords and also as tenants, it is however the "bad apples" on both sides that make the headlines which ruin it for everybody else.

If you have an issue with the Fair Deal scheme then that's fair enough but deal with it separately.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan, Thanks for getting back this time. I note that you selected one line from my post and based most of your response from that. You have ignored others. You have selected some quotes of an emotional nature (angry and/or distressed perhaps? did that surprise you?) from other posters and ignored all of the broader arguments. I suspect this is not deliberate. Like most of us, your antennae innately focus in on any "weak points" so that you underlying value system is protected.



Brendan Burgess said:


> I start with the value that we should look after those who can't provide for themselves and work from there. But we should not pay for people who can afford to pay for themselves.



I suggest that  this would lead to an extremely two-tiered society. Those who pay in (taxes) but then get nothing in return versus those who get services free but don't/can't pay anything. A paying all class and an underclass. A sort of social apartheid.The worthy and the worthless, each resenting each other for opposite reasons. Would this be a good vision of society ? I don't think so but I assume you would disagree.



Brendan Burgess said:


> Some Irish people can get irrational when it comes to anything to do with the home.



Most people tend not to be very rational when when their basic values are challenged. Although if their conception of themselves is wrapped up in being highly rational they may get even more "rational" (in their own eyes) to defend their values.


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## PMU

The Fair Deal scheme comes under the aegis of the Department of Health, not the Department of Housing. The scheme was reviewed by the Department of Health two years ago and no recommendations were made that Fair Deal participants be required to rent out their homes to finance the scheme. So a lot of the debate here on the financing of the scheme by renting out the houses of those in nursing care, while interesting, is irrelevant from a health policy perspective.  If renting out were such a good idea, why was this not recognized two years ago and included in the review?  Furthermore the D/Health's review recommends rebalancing long term care funding to include a greater home care element. So the current proposals from the Department of Housing that the Fair Deal scheme be adjusted to encourage the use of the properties of those in nursing care for rental would go against the review's recommendations, if for no other reason than you can't have a home care element if you are renting out your property.  http://health.gov.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Review-of-Nursing-Homes-Support-Scheme.pdf.

Interestingly the review noted that: “_Farmers are transferring the farm and PPR to their adult child and retaining a 'right of residence' in the PPR for the remainder of their lives. In such cases the PPR is in the name of the son/daughter and cannot be included as an asset in the financial assessment - where the asset was transferred five years before applying for the scheme_.” I don't know if this 'out' is available to the PAYE sector but presumably if a rental requirement were introduced it could be circumvented by a similar transfer deal.  It also means that as things stand, one set of Fair Deal participants (i.e. farmers) would be outside any rental proposals as they have already transferred their farms within the family.

To some extent, I think the 'rent out your home if you are in Fair Deal' is a red herring.  Minister Murphy's proposals concern 'vacant homes', and not just those of Fair Deal clients.  Homes can be vacant for a wide variety of reasons and to put it bluntly owners are best placed to decide what they want to do with their own private property, be it vacant or otherwise. It is the slippery slope on the road to serfdom if the Government were to decide or put excessive pressure on home owners to rent out or otherwise dispose of their private property against their best interests.   Basically, this is just a land grab with the Government or at least the Department of Housing thinking they know  what's best for other persons' private property, leaving the owner to carry the risk.


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## Brendan Burgess

Early Riser said:


> You have selected some quotes of an emotional nature (angry and/or distressed perhaps? did that surprise you?) from other posters and ignored all of the broader arguments. I suspect this is not deliberate. Like most of us, your antennae innately focus in on any "weak points" so that you underlying value system is protected.





In that post, I actually apologised if I had omitted any of the rational arguments: 
"Apologies if there was any argument which I omitted which had any force."

Why don't you do a balanced summary of the valid arguments, if you are not happy with mine.

Brendan


----------



## T McGibney

PMU said:


> Interestingly the review noted that: “_Farmers are transferring the farm and PPR to their adult child and retaining a 'right of residence' in the PPR for the remainder of their lives. In such cases the PPR is in the name of the son/daughter and cannot be included as an asset in the financial assessment - where the asset was transferred five years before applying for the scheme_.”* I don't know if this 'out' is available to the PAYE sector *but presumably if a rental requirement were introduced it could be circumvented by a similar transfer deal.  It also means that as things stand, one set of Fair Deal participants (i.e. farmers) would be outside any rental proposals as they have already transferred their farms within the family.



Of course that option is available to the PAYE sector, and many non-farmers avail of it. It is a basic estate planning tool that safeguards a parent's right to enjoy their homes for their lifetime even if they have disposed of their title in that home to their child or children.

PAYE is merely a tax collection at source system for income tax.

It has nothing to do with Fair Deal, inheritances or anything else really.


----------



## T McGibney

jjm said:


> for a minute I thought you were going to say Fg if they are not careful will finish up with less seats than Labour did after the 2016 Election


No. Fine Gael's natural seats floor is much higher than Labour's as the latter have no presence whatsoever in large swathes of the country.


----------



## LS400

I dont doubt your intelligence, and as I said your not posting with any malice, but your beginning to sound like a maverick here.  You are talking about a emotive subject weather you like it or not. Michael O Leary, another intelligent person, but if you were to give him a brief in Government, you wouldn't put him in-charge of Health.

Tough decisions are needed to get the the country out of the state its in, but not cheap ones like this. 

If you spent as much time here lobbing about the ridiculous state of the welfare train, or that you get 3 years of the Medical card after you loose your job, even if you get another job next month with more pay, you still hold on to the card for the 3 year duration, etc etc.  Or the LLord getting shafted and has no comeback, come on Brendan, I was trying to give you a soft landing, but we cant all be wrong here.


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## Brendan Burgess

LS400 said:


> we cant all be wrong here.



Sorry 

I forgot that.  The majority decides what is right.

Brendan


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## monagt

Brendan Burgess said:


> Sorry
> 
> I forgot that.  The majority decides what is right.
> 
> Brendan



That's the definition of Fascism, Brendan

Democracy is where the Majority take into account the views and wishes of the Minority.


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## Brendan Burgess

An open democracy should allow people to express their views even if the majority don't like them.  An open democracy would be open to having a majority view overturned by discussion and persuasion.

Fascism is something else completely.

A majority in the States probably believes in Creationism.  That does not mean it's right or wrong.  

Brendan


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## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> An open democracy should allow people to express their views even if the majority don't like them.  An open democracy would be open to having a majority view overturned by discussion and persuasion.



Free speech is when the volleys in reaction to an unpopular opinion are verbal.

The majority view also has the right, after hearing the contrary view, to not move its position an inch.

The trick is to find the issues on which they can be nudged \ shifted ... the issues where the roots are new or in need of rejuvenation.

If you push against that rock and it moves not an inch and send verbal volleys back at you, well it's probably not one of those issues.


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## delfio

What percentage of elderly people actually end up in a nursing home, probably less than 5% so we not talking huge numbers here.  The government would really want to start putting  more emphasis on care in the community but no they won't invest any resources in that, too complicated for them, all we hear on news is cutbacks in home help services, no money they say.


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## lukas888

Here is my personal contribution to this very emotive debate.My mother who is in her 98th year is a seven year resident of a midlands nursing
home and her finances has left her in an unfair position in comparison with others.For various personal reasons  my mother had rented a home
for years before she entered the facility.She had a portfolio of fixed income and equities with a value of roughly one million euros.Her income has
slipped from 40k per year  to now half that amount and  the remaining  valuation of her portfolio has been decimated because of the yearly contribution of 7.5% up to the yearly charge of now 60k. If she had purchased a home in 2010 in Dublin for up to a million, deferred the yearly payment until after her time she would lose 22.5% of a vastly appreciating asset.I largely agree with Brendan that the family home should be treated no different to any other asset and while nobody should be forced to rent it out it should continue to be assessed for as long as the owner is in care.


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi lukas 

As a matter of interest, looking at your mother entirely on her own, do you think that it is reasonable that someone with €1m in investments and no house should pay for their own nursing home care? 

Forget about how the scheme treats home owners for the moment.

Brendan


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## lukas888

Brendan i was educated a life time ago by the Jesuits in a well known boarding school, and i now know that if i was a more attentive student i would
be better equipped to answer your very pertinent question.So rather than give you on the one hand and then the other hand on balance my answer is yes they should.


----------



## Gordon Gekko

lukas888 said:


> Brendan i was educated a life time ago by the Jesuits in a well known boarding school, and i now know that if i was a more attentive student i would
> be better equipped to answer your very pertinent question.So rather than give you on the one hand and then the other hand on balance my answer is yes they should.



AMDG!


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## lukas888

Gordon to all the non Jesuit Latin scholars "To the greater glory of god"


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## Brendan Burgess

Gordon Gekko said:


> AMDG!



That does sound like the high moral ground ok.

Brendan


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## Brendan Burgess

lukas888 said:


> So rather than give you on the one hand and then the other hand on balance my answer is yes they should.



Hi lukas

And I agree with you. 

My overall principle is that people who can afford to pay for their nursing home care should do so.

Brendan


----------



## Early Riser

lukas888 said:


> Brendan i was educated a life time ago by the Jesuits in a well known boarding school, and i now know that if i was a more attentive student i would
> be better equipped to answer your very pertinent question.So rather than give you on the one hand and then the other hand on balance my answer is yes they should.



lukas888 - I assume a fee paying a school? Anyway, looking at the principle more widely - What is your view of state contributions (teacher salaries) to fee paying schools ? Should those who can afford to pay for their children's education be "subsidised by my taxes" ?


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## Early Riser

lukas888 said:


> I largely agree with Brendan that the family home should be treated no different to any other asset and while nobody should be forced to rent it out it should continue to be assessed for as long as the owner is in care.



lucas888 - I think most posters accept that Fair Deal needs to be reformed and the funding level increased  from those who have assets. I seem to recall that extending the time frame was one of a number of the options posited in The Fair Deal review. It seems very rational.

What Brendan has proposed here is not of them.


----------



## Early Riser

Brendan Burgess said:


> My overall principle is that people who can afford to pay for their nursing home care should do so.



Brendan, I think I will drop out of this debate now as I think continuation is pointless. I will summarise my view :

1 If the aim is to increase the contribution that those with assets make to Fair Deal (to contribute to sustainably) then begin from the options in the Review document and develop from there as necessary.

2 If the aim is to bring houses from Fair Deal into the rental market then introduce an incentive.

3 If the aim is both, then do both.

I think your proposal would be extremely difficult to implement in practice even if politically achievable (which, I believe, it is not). I believe it wrong in every way to introduce such as scheme as it would, I believe, be experienced as stressful and punitive by vulnerable people and their families.

However, I think there is a more fundamental issues of values. Mine are broadly communitarian. You have a principle that those who can afford to pay should pay. I cannot see any any rational basis why then this should not be applied, firstly, to the rest of healthcare, and then to education and more widely. You may not want to go that far but if we accept the principle, others will want to bring it further. I think this leads in a dangerous direction for "society", if we could still even call it that.

If we want a society, every one must have a stake in it - to give and to receive. (And at different points in our lives we are likely to be one or the other or both).


----------



## odyssey06

Brendan Burgess said:


> My overall principle is that people who can afford to pay for their nursing home care should do so.



Counter to this: The state asks ALL of its citizens to contribute to the provision of essential care so that coverage will be available to ALL of its citizens, should they need care.

Assumption: Nursing home care is essential care.
Justification: The state funds it for citizens who cannot fund it for themselves.

I don't know if I will need nursing home care, or cancer treatment in a public hospital, or access to expensive prescription medicines for a condition. These are unpredictable, unplanned for events of unpredictable duration and cost. The same applies to all citizens.
As a society we are pooling the risks to disperse the costs of access to essential care among all citizens.

We ask a fair and proportionate contribution from all citizens towards coverage. But we do NOT ask citizens to pay the full costs of these claims where this would be a significant financial burden.

It is reasonable to charge fees to access services to ensure they are not abused.
It is reasonable to seek co-payments (relative to means) where services are accessed in the market, so that citizens can determine for themselves how best to address their needs.
Neither of the above are intended to cover the full cost of the care.

e.g. look at the prescription model which covers all citizens - either you have medical card or your prescription costs are capped. Even if someone could afford to pay €1000 a month towards their medication, we do not ask for this, given the nature of the care they are accessing.

I think that 'all or nothing' structures, such as proposed here, inherently are more likely to lead to povery traps and dependency. Further, it is undermining to society if half the people feel they are carrying the other half and getting no thanks or help in return.
I think such an approach is more likely in the long run to lead to a 'free for all' approach, where everyone must look after their own needs.
If that is the case, let us give fair warning now that the state will not be there for ANY of its citizens, and you should start making provision now for you own coverage.

It is unreasonable and wrong think that people will work hard and help out others if at the end of the day, they are left with nothing for themselves and no help is forthcoming when they need to access care.

When it comes to essential care, either we are all in this together, and the State (republic?) stands with us - or let us know that we all must stand alone.


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## lukas888

Early Riser said:


> lukas888 - I assume a fee paying a school? Anyway, looking at the principle more widely - What is your view of state contributions (teacher salaries) to fee paying schools ? Should those who can afford to pay for their children's education be "subsidised by my taxes" ?


Yes with boarding school comes fees.Without getting into a debate about  the cost to the state of fee paying schools, is not our complete education system at all levels subsidised by the taxpayer.There is no doubt that the fair deal scheme needs reform particularly in the way the home is disregarded after three years.It is ludicrous to continue disregarding an asset after 3 years, that in some cases is worth millions if the owner with no 
other assets need nursing home care for many more years.


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## odyssey06

Early Riser said:


> lukas888 - I assume a fee paying a school? Anyway, looking at the principle more widely - What is your view of state contributions (teacher salaries) to fee paying schools ? Should those who can afford to pay for their children's education be "subsidised by my taxes" ?



Yes. We should cherish ALL children of the state. The state is not just there to help the poor. It is there to enable all children to fulfil their potential. If some parents can top-up the level of education provided, all well and good to them.


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## Early Riser

lukas888 said:


> Yes with boarding school comes fees.Without getting into a debate about the cost to the state of fee paying schools, is not our complete education system at all levels subsidised by the taxpayer.



Although I did not enjoy the "benefit" of fee-paying school myself, I do not have any difficulty with this. I assume part of my taxes goes towards it, as it goes towards all other education. The same principle applies for me here as for nursing home care.



lukas888 said:


> There is no doubt that the fair deal scheme needs reform particularly in the way the home is disregarded after three years.It is ludicrous to continue disregarding an asset after 3 years, that in some cases is worth millions if the owner with no
> other assets need nursing home care for many more years.



I agree.


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## Thirsty

I see the Irish Times has an opinion piece on this today.


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## Thirsty

> He is on Jobseekers Allowance and when they visited him and found he had a tenant, they said they would have to reduce the social welfare, so he got rid of the tenant.


And then we complain about the housing crisis.

If a person in employment is entitled to rent a room tax free, I fail to understand why the same allowance doesn't apply to a person on SW.


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## Gordon Gekko

Thirsty said:


> And then we complain about the housing crisis.
> 
> If a person in employment is entitled to rent a room tax free, I fail to understand why the same allowance doesn't apply to a person on SW.



Social Welfare should be there to help people who have no income of their own. Someone with rent-a-room income has income. By that rationale, someone on a €14,000 a year salary should also get Jobseekers Allowance.


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## Thirsty

"Social Welfare should be there to help people who have no income of their own"

There are many SW payments that are not means tested.

The criteria for Unemployment Benefit is that you have PRSI payments to a certain level, you're not working and you are actively seeking work.


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