Peter Roche (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I appreciate that the Minister of State has taken this issue by the scruff of the neck. We are all wiser now and hindsight is wonderful. The "RTÉ Investigates" programme has highlighted something that has now landed on the Minister of State's desk. It has been a most tragic and unfortunate set of events. I will not ask for dates and I do not want to expose anyone in any way, shape or form, except those who need to be exposed, namely, the people who manage the care homes. As I said, we are all wiser in hindsight.

As I watched the recent programme we have all heard about, which I did not watch in full, one of the things that came across was the unsuitability of the people who were in the positions of care. As I mentioned to the representatives of HIQA earlier, sometimes people were employed for the sake of employment. The people employed in hospitals and care homes must have a degree of suitability for the position or post for which they have applied. The people we witnessed in the programme were more suited to working in an abattoir than to caring for the very people we entrust to them to see out their lives.

There are some magnificent nursing homes around the country, private, public and otherwise, and some magnificent care is being administered. Given that this appalling abuse has now been exposed, the Minister of State has the task of ensuring that where people want to work in the healthcare sector, the interviewing process in some way ensures they are suitable and are not taking up the job for the sake of getting an income but because they want to work in the sector. It behoves us and the Minister of State to make sure that where any nursing home or care institution requires staff, the person to be employed fulfils certain criteria before carrying out the duty of seeing people through to the end of their lives.

I wish the Minister of State well with that. It is not an easy task, but at least he is now aware of the issues that need to be tackled head-on.