Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Will Mr. Breslin revert to us, through our secretariat, with up-to-date figures for 2020? I have asked for them and would appreciate it if they were made available to us. A key point is that if a nursing home does not meet infection control standards for Covid-19, it should not have patients at all because it is not fit for purpose.

My second question concerns the ratio of nurses and medical professionals to patients. We have huge conglomerates running massive nursing homes and we do not know the ratio between the number of high-dependency patients and the number of nurses who should be there to look after them. Is the Department going to do something about that? Will there be a new addition to the requirements so that nursing homes will have to have X number of nurses for X number of high-dependency patients, particularly given that 70% of such patients have dementia? What are we going to do in that regard?