Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witness for the presentation. I made a point earlier that I think is worth repeating, namely, we are viewing all of this in the context of an extremely weak and irresponsible policy context. If anything, we should learn from this experience that this virus has exposed huge weaknesses in how we provide social care in this country.

I was struck by the comment in Mr. Quinn's opening statement that 80% of nursing homes are operated by private providers and that although they are funded largely through fair deal, the HSE did not know this sector. It is a damning statement of our national health service that in regard to up to 30,000 very vulnerable patients resident in nursing homes, the HSE did not know this sector and it needed to get information from HIQA. Mr. Quinn went on to speak about the current model of private residential care having no formal clinical governance links with the HSE, which is really extraordinary. There is no national clinical oversight of care for what is probably the most vulnerable group of patients in this country. That is damning.

I have some questions in regard to HIQA's action in this regard. It is clear HIQA had serious concerns about the lack of clinical oversight for this large number of patients. What did it do with those concerns? With whom were they raised? Apart from commenting on them in reports, with whom did HIQA raise them and on how many occasions did it raise them with the HSE, the Department or Ministers? What was the reaction when it did so?