Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Breslin, Mr. Reid and all of the staff from the HSE and the Department for the work they have done. I also thank the staff in all of the medical facilities in nursing homes, hospitals and care facilities. My understanding is that in February 2019, the number of deaths in nursing homes connected to the flu virus increased from about 600 per month, which would be the normal number of deaths in nursing homes across the country, to about 1,000. In view of that, would it not have been the priority of both the Department and the HSE to clearly see that this was very much a vulnerable group in respect of Covid-19? There are 23,500 people in private nursing homes. There is no one denying that there was communication with the nursing homes and Nursing Homes Ireland.

However, there was no involvement at any kind of committee stage where a representative from that group would have made a contribution. There was Alone, for instance, which deals with people in the community and is giving great support to elderly people, but Nursing Homes Ireland or any representative from the private sector was not involved in any committee. In hindsight, would it have been better to have had the private sector involved at an early stage rather than in April?

I turn to HSE facilities where there was a high incidence of deaths, such as those in Clonakilty, Portlaoise, Donegal and the Phoenix Park. In one of them, there were six beds per ward. No action appears to have been taken. In some of the facilities, no isolation units were available. If the facilities had been hit with the virus, what action was planned for dealing with it? It appears that very little would have been able to have been done to deal with it.

Some 56% of nursing homes are Covid-19 free. Of that figure, what numbers of patients were transferred from hospitals to those units over the past three months? Were there no transfers or, if not, can we have sight of the numbers transferred to Covid-free units?

Finally, can we have a breakdown of the total number of staff recruited by the HSE from 1 January 2019 to 30 May 2020 who were previously employed in nursing homes, either as nurses or care staff?