Mr. Phelim Quinn:

The Deputy is quite correct in that HIQA was invited onto NPHET quite early on. There was no specific reference at that point to HIQA being the voice of nursing homes. HIQA is an organisation with a very wide remit. It has a remit for the regulation of health and social care services in Ireland, which includes our healthcare services, adult social care services, children's services, health technology assessment and standards development. It was from that perspective that it was my understanding that HIQA was being invited onto NPHET. I would appreciate that there has not been reference within the minutes in respect of nursing homes. However, I am also aware that on 4 March there was a specific sub-group of NPHET set up to look at vulnerable people, which would have included the nursing home sector. Colleagues from HIQA were at that point nominated onto that group. I believe it is from that point as well that HIQA played a very significant role in providing information, data and a number of other sources that dealt with the way in which we were looking at nursing homes, perceiving the problems within the nursing home sector and also how we at that point started to support that sector.