Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I accept the genuineness of Ms Grogan's intent and her professionalism and integrity in the context of what she is saying. However, it is still not working and the danger is still there. I am concerned that there will be awful events in some of these homes where there are risks and where those risks have not been addressed. I agree that one of the issues the Government must address is to find a way of funding, by way of low-interest loans or interest-free loans, genuine service providers so that they can make them safe.

My other question relates to the Emily case. I know we are not going to identify the home involved or any issue in respect of the individual in the home. It appears people were sexually assaulted and raped over a period of years and that more than one person in that home has suffered in the past as a result of such actions. The only people who can look inside homes are those in HIQA. They failed to identify the issue of the number of years those actions may have been going on. We do not know yet but it may have been going on for as long as 16 years. Why was HIQA unable to identify significant abuse such as that where it appears there were extant records that were either not looked at or were ignored?