Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are talking about fire safety standards, the rights of residents and the quality of buildings. There were very serious failings and I am interested to learn how many nursing homes were fully compliant.

HIQA published some concerning reports at the start of September. They indicate that in some nursing homes the personal money of residents was, without their knowledge, being used to pay for the daily running costs of several residential homes. Some moneys are supposed to have been retained even after the death of a resident. Is this a common occurrence and what is being done to stamp out the practice?

Another issue is spurious charges and, again, I do not know if that comes across. We usually hear complaints from families of residents about having to pay for hairdressing services, entertainment and more. I know of an instance where the family of a resident in a nursing home was charged an horrendous price for an orthopaedic bed. I know of one case where the family of a resident had to take out an equity loan. I personally would not recommend anyone release equity in their home. In this case, when the two parents died, there was no home equity left because of the loan period. The spurious charges applied in some of those cases are horrific.