Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being here today and offer my sympathies to the families of those who have been bereaved and those resident or working in the nursing home sector.

I have some questions for Mr. Daly relating to his statement and correspondence we received today. It strikes me that the nursing home sector showed a degree of foresight and planning and tried to flag issues at a very early stage. The hundreds of pieces of correspondence we received at 9.30 a.m. today indicate that, as Mr. Daly said in his opening statement, a national strategy and response was required. The correspondence and letters from March show that Mr. Daly was begging for assistance and PPE and that, to use his words, he was pleading with the State to stop the aggressive recruitment of staff from the nursing home sector.

In short, it appears that nursing homes were flooded with patients and starved of staff, and yet there was no plan. Does Mr. Daly have any idea why no plan was forthcoming, when all of the international experience would tell us that there was a need for one? We know now that more than half of the deaths that have occurred have occurred in the nursing home sector. Why was there no plan?