UK to Ireland elderly care home. Advice!

[Acorncat1]

Hello,
My mil is about to become widowed over soon. She lives in the UK. When my Fil dies, she is unable to go back to their house, due to many reasons. She's also recently beeb diagnosed with alzeimhers. We were thinking of the possibility of getting her into a care home near us in ireland. We've no idea about tax implications etc. Does anyone have any experience of this?
Thanks!

To qualify for Fair Deal (Nursing Home Support Scheme) your MIL must have been "ordinarily resident" in Ireland amongst other things.

The Fair Deal Scheme is outlined here.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/health-services/health-services-for-older-people/fair-deal-scheme/

Ordinary Residence is defined here.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money-and-tax/tax/moving-country-and-taxation/tax-residence-and-domicile-in-ireland/#:~:text=Ordinary%20residence,-Your%20pattern%20of&text=If%20you%20have%20been%20resident,for%203%20continuous%20tax%20years.

Are you talking about privately funding her care? What do you mean by 'tax implications'? Whose tax?

Thank you. She has been living in the UK all her life. But has more family in Ireland now. Once she sells her house she will have to pay for her care as she will have more than the minimum amount you need before the government will cover anything. Sorry I didn't mean tax, I meant will the Irish government cover any of her care home costs if she spends all her savings on care. Does this make sense?

Oh I see ordinarily resident includes people who plan to stay here for a year, you don't have to have lived here already.

I'd imagine the short answer is that the Irish Gov would be unwilling to pay for a foreign person availing of NH care. My DM has been in a NH 3+ years and all residents appear to be Irish to me. Fair Deal is not fully funded - even people 'entitled' to it have to wait, and many self fund in the meantime, whereas others remain in acute beds 'bed blocking' awaiting FD funding to come through.

I'd imagine people planning to stay in Ireland for a year refers to people coming to work, being able to access services immediately. Not to facilitate people to come with the express intention of availing of public service (never having contributed). I think this is sort of an international st
andard

OK thank you. That makes sense. I thought there might be some sort of deal between UK and Ireland but probably I'm wrong.

That rings a fain bell. I think there was a historic deal, maybe years ago where homeless Irish were repatriated. i think it was like Irish people who had spent their working lives in the UK but were now dependent on the state for care . It was a initiative driven by charities if I remember correctly.

https://safehomeireland.com/

http://aisling.org.uk/?page_id=14

British citizens aren't really counted as foreign in Ireland, and vice versa. There are innumerable agreements between the two countries for almost everything.

It's entirely possible a UK citizen counts the same as an Irish person in this situation.

If 'fair deal' is not available it might be worth looking at funding a N.H. place yourselves. Some years ago we looked at this and while the family did not 'get' any money from The State we could contribute towards the cost from gross income. In addition this was not limited to the contributions of one person. So, for instance, it would have been possible for six people ( and IIRC not necessarily related to the N.H. resident ) to each contribute two months N.H. fees to cover a year. I'd say have a chat with a tax accountant if you think this might be a way forward

Just highlighting also that whoever pays the nursing home fees is entitled to tax relief at their marginal rate of tax. Your mil may not pay enough Irish tax (depending on her income levels) to utilise the full benefit of this but if you can pay the fees and have enough tax capacity to claim the full relief back it can be a big help.

Thank you all so much. That is very useful info. I'll look into this a bit more.