Ms Angela Fitzgerald:

It is a very fair point. Mr. Colfer and I spend quite a bit of time meeting families who spend every day, such as one man we met who visits his dad every single day. His sisters do a rota every evening. Their concern is what happens when they are not there. They were very satisfied with what they saw, but they have a confidence issue. It is a fair point the Deputy raises. Whatever about dementia patients, and my mother had dementia, what I can say is that it is important we do not dismiss the voice a dementia patient has, but we have to have additional rail guards to ensure there are other checks. The Senator has put her hand on a very important point that both Mr. Colfer and Ms Cliffe will come in on.

As regards the point Deputy Roche made which the Senator also picked up on, which is the qualifications people have, there are no minimum qualifications for staffing. Deputy Roche made the point that in a difficult environment, you take the person you can rather than the person you should. That is the responsibility of the provider. We have asked the Minister to look at qualifications being mandatory. The State staffing framework will give us much more weight to raise those questions.

As to the Senator’s point about families being hurt by this, I absolutely get that. There is nothing we can say today to change that. It is going to take time and action by nursing homes and by ourselves and it is going to take additional powers. However, there may be a couple of specific points the Senator made that-----