Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)

I thank the witnesses for coming this morning. This is an important issue. One line I picked up in the Safeguarding Ireland report was about giving adult abuse the same legislation, policy and powers in line with the domestic abuse legislation, using Cuan as an example. Do the witnesses think there would have to be many additions to it to make the policy document for safeguarding robust? Another thing I picked up on was that HIQA does not have the power to investigate an individual if there is a complaint about an individual in a nursing home, unless it is asked by the Minister. I do not see a Minister getting involved in it, so how can we overcome that? Have they suggestions as to how that should be solved? I turn to training. It is important that everybody receives the same training and is at a certain standard. Is there a training body out there, which is at that level, or would we have to reinvent the wheel and develop a new training policy? Would the organisations also comment on replacing holistic social care with a human rights-based healthcare model?