Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Taylor and Mr. Daly for coming and for their work in the past few months advocating on behalf of older people and residents and staff within the nursing homes. What has happened is tragic and heartbreaking. It has happened in a lot of other countries, although notably there are countries that managed to act decisively and early and avoid the outbreaks we have seen in our nursing homes. Both Mr. Daly and Mr. Taylor have laid out that older people lack a voice generally in policymaking and that nursing homes - really, we are talking about the residents and the staff when we talk about nursing homes - have also lacked a voice in this crisis. The Government's Covid action plan for mid-March refers to nursing homes only once as somewhere to send hospital patients. The plan makes no reference to any supports or risks that need to be examined for nursing homes. Mr. Daly has said that the first time he managed to get a meeting with the Minister was 30 March, when we were well into the crisis in the nursing homes. The first time the National Public Health Emergency Team even mentioned nursing homes in its minutes was in the minutes for its 12th meeting on 10 March. Its recommendation was that the restrictions that the nursing homes themselves had put in place should be relaxed. The National Public Health Emergency Team therefore held two positions in the same week: one, that schools should all close, and two, that nursing homes should be more open, which I find absolutely extraordinary. Would representation on the National Public Health Emergency Team and closer contact with senior officials and Cabinet have made a difference? The Minister's position, which he has outlined repeatedly to me, is that HIQA, the regulator, represents nursing homes at the table. Do the witnesses believe HIQA can represent nursing homes at the table? Critically, looking forward, do the witnesses believe that nursing home residents and staff and older people have a sufficient voice now, be it on the National Public Health Emergency Team, in senior policy settings, in senior HSE areas or at a senior political level, in order that we can properly prepare for the potential second wave which may come and make sure we do not see these outbreaks and tragic deaths occur again in our nursing homes, and indeed for older people in other settings?