Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will direct questions to Mr. Reid or Mr. Breslin. Something that might come through here and be shown up by the expert panel is that one of the most likely vectors for disease has been agency staff who were transiting between different care homes. That is a function of the private nature of nursing home care. As previous speakers noted, 80% of such care is provided in the private sector.

I will talk about the support that was given to the private nursing home sector and support payments. I have previously raised the fact that significant costs were incurred and flagged within the private nursing home sector back in March. I do not believe those costs have been looked at since. The capitation grant was not given to private patients, even though they were in the process and were surely part of the risk metric. The cost of personal protective equipment paid by nursing homes in March has not been covered and repaid. Isolation requirements that the Department and the HSE are mandating on private nursing homes are reducing their revenue streams. That is an additional cost.

Another issue that was highlighted early on in the process was that the HSE was recruiting temporary staff who were largely coming across from private agencies that were supplying support to the private nursing sector. Have any steps been taken to mitigate the effects of those issues in future, in the context of the possibility of a second surge of the virus, and has consideration been given to how they might be dealt with?