Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Good morning everybody and I thank the witnesses for their contributions thus far.

It makes for very sombre reading when we hear more than half of the people who have died were in nursing home settings. It is a terrible situation in which the staff in nursing homes, residents and their relatives find themselves. I worked in a nursing home for a number of years and I cannot imagine the hurt and pain relatives are going through at the moment when they cannot see their loved ones in their time of need. It is pretty bleak to say the least. Our solidarity and support goes to all the workers and residents who are in that situation.

The public were shocked last year to learn that more than 50% of the people who died from Covid were in a nursing home setting. In January that figure has gone down to approximately 35%. We do not seem to have learned any lessons even with respect to the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response. It made a number of good recommendations, particularly related to staffing levels, retention of staff, agency staff and how people were discharged from acute hospitals into a nursing home setting. Hopefully all those recommendations can be adhered to. When the dust settles on this members of the public will want a public inquiry into what happened in nursing homes. There is the disparate nature of nursing homes with 80% being private and 20% being public. Also, there does not seem to be a coherent plan for the care of our loved ones. When all of this is revealed, we will have to look at ourselves in the mirror. Would the HSE personnel support a public inquiry into what has happened during the past year, particularly with respect to nursing homes?