Ms Leanne Caulfield:

In answer to the question regarding the reports of the special committee and the nursing homes expert panel, and, indeed, the report of HIQA, on nursing homes from the past year, the commission is very much aware of all of those publications. The commission is keen to learn from the recommendations of those reports. We are mindful that we have been living with the Covid-19 pandemic for almost a year and the reality is we must learn from the pandemic in how recommendations and learnings could be applied to crisis or emergency situations in the future. The pandemic has highlighted the regulatory gaps in place that we were already mindful and aware of prior to the pandemic, but I suppose we really see in the midst of a pandemic how great an impact those regulatory gaps can have when we are faced with a crisis situation. We very much want to learn from this and all of the recommendations in terms of improvement going forward. Should there be a crisis or an emergency situation the future, the onus is on us to learn from this experience and how we could be best placed to address a further situation in the future.