Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We are seeing a serious attempt to pass the parcel today on the part of all the witnesses. It is not a failure of any one body - Nursing Homes Ireland, HIQA, the HSE or the Department - but at its heart it is a gigantic political failure to act in the interests of our elderly people. Since the late 1980s we have been privatising the care of the elderly. It was described by the Ombudsman in a 2010 report as a creeping move towards privatisation that has now become a gallop. We have a reversal of what we had in the 1980s today, with 80% of nursing homes in the private sector and 20% in the public sector. There should be no attempt by anybody to say "It is not me, it is them or it is not them, it is me". All are to blame here.

I point out to the HSE and HIQA that this is very similar to the Ruth Morrissey case in the context of CervicalCheck. The court was very clear in that instances when it stated that one cannot argue that because a service or care is subcontracted, responsibility can be passed on. Both HIQA and the HSE accept that patients are referred to private nursing homes. Responsibility for what has happened here cannot be avoided.

I have a couple of questions for the HSE. I understand Mr. Walsh is a member of NPHET. Is that correct? We went through the minutes of NPHET, a committee which has been meeting since early January, and the first mention of care of the elderly was in early March. Can Mr. Walsh tell me when he decided that this was an issue for NPHET?