Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The second question I want to come back on concerns what Deputy Louise O'Reilly said about the delay in getting people out of hospitals and into nursing homes. This is not a problem caused by the nursing homes. When there was a huge problem with many people in beds waiting to be discharged, for example, nursing homes had over 750 vacant beds at the time. There seems to have been very little connection. Nursing Homes Ireland tried to get involved and give assistance, but there was still a very poor response from the HSE. Following on from Deputy O'Reilly's point, there must be a faster mechanism for dealing with this. It is not the fault of the nursing homes.