Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It would be useful if Nursing Homes Ireland recognised the enormous sums of public money which we, the Oireachtas, have all agreed they should get for PPE, for testing and tracing and for the various schemes the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has run with them, including most recently another €10 million. When Nursing Homes Ireland states it is disappointed with Government, all of us in the Oireachtas should remember how much money has been given to take care of people in our country during the pandemic. That is why we did it.

Regarding the pandemic recognition payment, these are private for-profit organisations. There was nothing to stop any of these organisations paying the money themselves to their employees over the last while. As the Deputy will be aware, in the briefing note the officials laid out what the many months this year were spent doing. Part of it, as we said last week, was engaging with the representative bodies to ensure we had an agreed approach. As the Deputy will be aware, the HSE was concerned that it could be double-paying people in nursing homes because they might also work in a HSE facility. The HSE was trying to ensure the public money was spent in the right way. I intervened, as the Deputy will be aware, to suggest using this other approach and many nursing home staff have been paid.