Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have only a few seconds left. No memo was issued to instruct the transfer out of patients to clear space in the hospitals, that was just done on a case-by-case basis by individual clinicians. I do not find that to be a very credible statement. It strikes me that the Department and the HSE had a plan to use the capacity in the nursing home sector but no plan to protect the nursing home residents. I do not hold any candle for the private nursing home sector. Anyone who knows me knows my views on that but the Department and the HSE had a duty of care to the patients - not to the private nursing home sector - but to the residents of those nursing homes, all of whom should be entitled to the full protection of PPE and the full protection of the State. I do not think that it is enough for people, by the way, who may or may not be complicit in the privatisation to say that somehow there could have been a hands-off approach. I have asked a series of very simple questions. It is clear that there was no plan to protect nursing home residents, there was only a plan to utilise that capacity.