Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 10 September 2020
Special Committee on Covid-19 Response
Examination of HIQA Report on the Impact of Covid-19 on Nursing Homes in Ireland
Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source
I consider that to be very late indeed. It was during that period that people in nursing homes throughout the country were dying. The document presented by HIQA this morning is self-serving. It does not mention anywhere the authority's responsibility or accountability or the lack of inspections or staff.
It grieves me to meet families who lost loved ones. I refer, in particular, to those families whose loved ones were in Dealgan House Nursing Home. Some 23 family of those people died. These families are broken-hearted and exhausted. They are in a difficult place right now. They are getting no closure and no help from HIQA, which is dealing with their correspondence and freedom of information, FOI, requests by means of redacted replies. There is a lack of information for these families. They are looking for the truth as to why and how their loved ones died. The refusal on the part of HIQA, which is the regulator in this area, to provide information is hurting these people deeply and causing them grief. Do the witnesses have any view on that?
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