Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses for being here. I do not want to repeat everything that has been said but there will be some repetition, for which I apologise.

I recognise the difficult job HIQA has. It is not easy to be in a policing role. There may be many successes but it is the failures that are highlighted and I do understand this. HIQA's role is not only policing, as it also has a lot of policy formulation input. I recognise this. Obviously, however, with regard to what the country witnessed on "RTÉ Investigates" recently, it is fair to say it absolutely disgusted people. It was an utter failure of regulation, there is no question about it, to see this humiliating, degrading and disrespectful treatment of elderly citizens. People would be rightly outraged if they saw this type of behaviour towards animals. Unfortunately, in this case it was towards elderly citizens. It really resonated with people because we all have elderly relatives and, God willing, we will be elderly ourselves some day. We want to ensure there is adequate trust in the system of regulation of our nursing homes.

I will get into some specific questions, if I may. Again, I apologise if there is repetition. I tried to listen as much as I could but I may have missed some of it. What is HIQA's overall staff count and how many of these staff are directly involved in inspections?