Health

Conor O’Mahony: state’s legal strategy on nursing home charges is the rule, not the exception

‘The aim is to send a message: if you come for the state, you’d better not miss’, writes Professor Conor O’Mahony of the School of Law at University College Cork

It has been claimed that families were wrongly charged for care of their loved ones over a 30-year period.

This week’s political news has been dominated by the government’s legal strategy in defending litigation concerning nursing homes charges. The story has been presented as a shocking revelation that state authorities had a carefully constructed plan designed to drag people through the courts one by one, ultimately settling cases late in the day to avoid a judgment establishing a precedent that other litigants could rely on. Thus, many potential litigants are deterred from litigating at ...