Ms Angela Fitzgerald:

That decision was taken by Emeis itself in discussion with us. As the Deputy knows, we have no regulatory role vis-à-vis Emeis as an entity. We do have with each of the individual providers. Through discussions with the chief inspector and the deputy chief inspector, it took that decision. We are in a programme of inspection by agreement with the Minister and we will make a separate and independent decision about whether that restriction should remain in some or all of them.

It is important to say that I went to the two nursing homes in question and met with a very significant number of residents and their families. We spoke at length with residents who were able to talk to us about their own experience. Notwithstanding what we saw, and I am not in any way trying to minimise what we saw, a number of residents who had the capability were able to tell us their direct experience and many of them had very good experiences, as had their families. We need to tackle what we saw but we also have to acknowledge that some aspects of care were, and continue to be, good.