The Tánaiste and Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said that the Government will be increasing the grant for nursing home aid in the forthcoming Budget.
Ms Harney said there had been no increases in nursing home grants since 1993 and that some threshold levels were very low.
She also said that money will be provided in the forthcoming Estimates for the re-payment of people illegally charged in nursing homes.
Ms Harney said the Government hopes to start repaying people next year and that the Department of Health has so far processed between 16,000 and 17,000 applications.
The Tánaiste's comments come after the Irish Nursing Homes Organisation claimed that 43% of private nursing homes in the country were subject to unannounced inspections by the Health Services Executive between January and August.
The organisation says this represents an average of over two inspections per nursing home in a 12-month period.
The data comes from the third annual survey of private nursing homes carried out for the INHO, which was published today at the organisation's annual conference in Dublin.
Under the current law, private nursing homes are required to be inspected every six months.
However, INHO Chairman Paul Costello says there are no inspections of State-owned nursing homes at all.
