Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Two issues come to mind. With any ombudsman’s office, one bugbear I have when asking about power, additional resources or whatever is mental health respite for older people. There is no oversight in that regard. When one tries to reach out to access information or help for families, it is not available. To cut a long story short, I reached out to the European ombudsman on this issue and was told it has no remit. It sends you back to the Mental Health Commission or some other organisation. You get the run-around, with no oversight. Is there a way to create an ombudsman's office to deal specifically with long-term respite care for older people with mental health difficulties? It could be similar to what has been proposed in the context of protected disclosures. There is a significant gap there.

The other issue I wish to raise is nursing home deaths and so on. I have raised it as a Topical Issue matter and asked the Minister to hold a public inquiry into it. There seems to be a lack of oversight in this regard. In the context of the Ombudsman's report, I mentioned earlier that when the Ombudsman sought information, the nursing home management said it was not obliged to respond.

As Mr. Deering said, this is about doing the right thing, improving services, finding out where the mistakes were made and addressing them to make sure they do not happen again.

Mr. Deering mentioned that where people are not happy about medical bills or something else, they can eventually go to the Ombudsman. Before I even open my mouth about the proposed enhanced medical cards, in light of the fact Mr. Deering mentioned cross-Border issues, I know they will not cover cataracts. I will try to find out tonight from whatever Minister will be in the Chamber what this enhanced medical card for the survivors of the mother and baby homes will cover. This is a human rights issue. The majority of the people affected are elderly. We know what problems are coming down the line for them, and cataracts are certainly among them. Will there be an option in future for people to contact the Office of the Ombudsman to look into this as a rights-based issue?