So far, according to figures, more than €251m has been paid out to successful claimants. It is due to be wound up in June.

KPMG and McCann's have earned an estimated €5.8m in fees for its almost two years of work. Another €2m has been spent on advertising.

Since the scheme began, over 36,000 applications have been received and plenty rejected; almost 9,600 applications have been denied.

Offers of payment have been sent to more than 13,000 claimants with 9,500 of these being accepted.

The Government has been criticised for failing to prioritise the repayment of illegal nursing home charges.

In a response to a Dail question, Health Minister Mary Harney confirmed there is just one appeals officer to deal with almost 3,000 appeals.

She said a total of 2,935 repayment scheme appeals had been lodged, representing around 12pc of all processed claims.

Fine Gael TD Paul Connaughton said this will force elderly people to wait unacceptable lengths of time to establish their entitlement.

He said there were unacceptable delays 'from the very outset'.

"Initially this was due to political inertia around the publication of the repayment legislation. Then there were unnecessary complications surrounding the tendering process for the scheme administrator.

"Now thousands of elderly people are expected to tolerate even more delays because there is only one appeals officer," he added.

Options

The family of an 81-year-old woman spoken to by the Irish Independent says all seemed well with her application until she got a phone call a month ago. It was from a Health Repayment Scheme administrator in Co Kerry and they wanted to discuss the pensioner's "options". The woman's family say she put down the phone in the full expectation that a cheque was on the way.

But a week later she was upset and confused to get a letter which not only implied she had contacted the HSE first but she was agreeing to withdraw her claim for the money.

The letter made no bones about who had contacted who: "Further to your telephone conversation with us, we write to confirm that you informed us that you now wish to withdraw your claim for payments."