Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

This is about public service by a public service broadcaster, RTE. The "Prime Time" programme last night was wonderful. It was well researched, well thought out and well produced. It showed RTE at its best in terms of exposing what is bad. I commend it on its work. This debate is the result of that work. I wish to put on record my appreciation of the work of the Sunday Independent, particularly Jody Corcoran, who has always published information I receive about nursing homes throughout the country.

This debate is not foreign to the Minister of State or his predecessors. There was a debate on this in 2001 in the Seanad when I raised with the then Minister the case of a nursing home in County Louth. It was the first one to come to my attention. I got a complaint that a lady was freezing in her nursing home. I went there with her husband and we found the lady in bed, fully clothed and freezing. The home was freezing, with a temperature of 12°C. It was a cold day. The temperature in the home ought to have been at 19° to 21°C. Old people die if they do not have adequate heating but there are nursing homes such as this. The Minister knew that in 2001 but there was no change in nursing home legislation. The system continued as it was and it continues like that today.

Today, the Taoiseach offered the same pious platitudes as the former Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, the former Minister of State Moffatt, and their predecessors. They are aware of what is going on but they do not care about what happens. The Tánaiste made a song and dance about care of the elderly, but where is she tonight? Why is she not present? She ought to be here. This has generated the greatest amount of public concern in recent years about care of the elderly, but no member of the Government is present. That is what the Government does — nothing.

This is the Government that changed the Freedom of Information Act and made it more difficult to find out what is happening in our society. It increased the charges for freedom of information requests. In response to a freedom of information question I asked recently about a nursing home, I was informed by the health board that under a section of the Freedom of Information Act it could not give me the information. The reason was that it would bring the health board to a halt. I rang up the person concerned and asked what was the problem. He said: "The problem is very simple, I have 1,000 pages here and you expect me to go through every one of them and take out the names of all the people concerned, but I cannot do it and we do not have the resources to do it."

That is the Health Service Executive we have, and it is not good enough. I complained bitterly about that. I left a message with a gentleman who appeared tonight on the RTE news, Mr. Aidan Browne. He is a senior executive in the HSE with responsibility for nursing homes. When I called him I was told he was not available. I responded that he sends me letters but does not sign them. I asked where he was and was told he was at meetings or travelling. I left my name and asked that he ring me, but a week later he had not rang. He can appear on RTE but he cannot ring a Deputy to discuss the issues. That is what the Minister is presiding over and it is neither acceptable nor good enough.

There are 423 nursing homes in this country. The vast majority of them are excellent institutions but a significant minority of 33 were given adverse reports last year. They were bad nursing homes providing unacceptable care. In some instances, the care was appalling. What has the Minister done about it? What did the Minister, Deputy Callely, do about it when he was told about it in a letter from Beaumont Hospital? The letter was from a consultant in Beaumont Hospital who was speaking about the worst pressure sores he had ever seen. He wrote the letter in 2004 but the incident occurred in 2001. In the second last paragraph of the letter he said he could still vividly remember how bad the sores were.

What is happening in our nursing homes? There is another case involving a man in a certain nursing home. There are other nursing homes in the county concerned so I will not mention it although the press has the story anyway. The man died in the nursing home. The health report states that he was in a cold, darkened room. He had nobody with him and had no facility to call anybody should he need assistance. It took me four long years to get those facts. Why was that? It was due to the Freedom of Information Act, appeals and lack of staff in the Information Commissioner's office. I have numerous examples of and reports on bad nursing homes in this country. I am sick of it, as are the people. They want change. Will they get it tonight from the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, the Taoiseach, the Minister for Health and Children or the Government backbenchers?

We have reached a terrible stage. I will draw a comparison for the Minister. When I was a teacher, I and my pupils researched the workhouse in Drogheda in 1843. We examined the minute book and the students wrote down information from it which they then reproduced in a lovely little book. RTE covered this at the time. In 1843, people were extremely poor and when they had nowhere to go they went to the workhouse. Under the workhouse system, there were poor law guardians who held public meetings. At the first meeting they held in public, they were fighting about the beige cloth, who should sit in the big chair and so forth. Nevertheless, the guardians had matron's reports and the press reported on their meetings. One can discover from the press reports — I looked at the reports — what was happening in those workhouses. The public knew what was happening.

What do we know now? The Government has put the nursing home sector and the entire health service in the hands of a bureaucracy that cannot be questioned or held to account in this House. Its personnel will not respond when one telephones. If one asks a parliamentary question, one will wait three months for a reply — I had to wait that length for a reply to a question about a nursing home and I am sure my colleagues in the House have had similar experiences.

The Government has betrayed the people's trust. It has removed the health boards but has put nothing in their place. Aidan Browne would have rang me when he was an executive in the North Eastern Health Board — I met him every week — but he did not ring me on this occasion because he is not accountable to me or to this House. The Government takes no responsibility for what it has done but it stands indicted for delivering the health services into this appalling mess. I accuse all members of the Government of not doing their job and not caring. The mumbled speeches are not good enough. The people want more, they want action.

The Taoiseach said today that he will change the law, and I welcome that. On the Order of Business I asked him if the nursing homes reports would be available outside of the Freedom of Information Act. The Ceann Comhairle ruled that the question was out of order. The issue is that the Freedom of Information Act is the only way to obtain nursing home reports; there is no other way to access them. Up to December 2004, if the nursing home objected it could take up to four years to get the full facts. The Information Commissioner made a recent decision in this regard, and she is on the record as stating that such reports should normally be available. However, they are not normally available. Moreover, the Government introduced a measure with the result that if one wants to appeal the refusal of the health board, a €75 fee must be paid. That may be fine for Members of the House but it is not for Mrs. Murphy, Mrs. Maguire, John Malone or anybody else. The Government is protecting the bureaucracy through the changes it made to the law in regard to FOI. It stands condemned for that.

The Minister of State, Deputy Callely, knew about the case referred to in the letter from the consultant. He was the Minister with responsibility for the elderly — that was his job. While he made good representations, what changes to the law did he bring about as Minister? The answer is none. The Government shies away from its responsibilities; its members do not resign. The Minister of State, Deputy Callely, ought to resign. He knew everything about the most appalling case of bedsores the consultant involved had ever experienced.

What should we do? Many people have family members in nursing homes. After all the publicity, they wonder whether their wives, husbands, sons and daughters are in good nursing homes. How they can find out this information? If a family member is in an acute hospital, the hospital staff will probably suggest the family member should go to a nursing home in the area. Therefore, the HSE is sending people to nursing homes its inspectors say are not good enough or about which it has had adverse reports. Will the Government take responsibility for this? While most nursing homes are excellent institutions, how does one discover this information?

An example may illustrate my point. If one searches for information on nursing homes on the Internet, one can examine information on nursing homes in the United States and the legislation governing them. Two minutes after leaving the Chamber, one could access information on Chicago, Illinois, and find how many nursing homes are within the city's bounds; one would find that there are 56 nursing homes in the area. It is possible to access individual nursing home sites. One of the nursing homes is named Waterford, so, needless to say, I looked at its site. The reports on individual nursing homes detail the number of patients in the nursing home, the staff to resident ratio, the degree of dependency, the proportionality between high dependence and low dependence, and the state and national averages in this regard. It is possible to make a judgment on each nursing home. If a nursing home is not doing its job and the inspectors are unhappy, it is fined on the spot. If a nursing home is not run properly, it will be fined anything from $5,000 to $100,000, or the inspection regime will put in its own people to run the nursing home.

That is what happens in the United States. I am critical of American norms and standards with regard to many parts of the world but with regard to nursing homes, they cannot be beaten. However, one cannot find out about nursing homes in Ireland. That is a shame on the Government. It has long known how bad some nursing homes are but has done nothing about it.

One of the ladies featured on last night's television programme was laughed and jeered at by a nursing home attendant, who pushed himself on her and behaved in an appalling, rude way. She told him: "Go away from me. You are rotten." That is what I say to the Minister: the Government is rotten in this context. It knew about the situation but did nothing. People up and down the country are saying the situation is not good enough and not acceptable, and they will not put up with it any longer. At the least, the Minister of State, Deputy Callely, should resign. The truth will come out on all of these issues, although it is a very sad and unacceptable truth. We have a big job to do.

The amendment to the motion is laughable and cynical. It suggests the Government will do everything when it has done nothing. The Government should be humbled. It should admit it was wrong and did not do its job. Yet, it will now try to cod us again.

We have complaints about nursing homes containing 1,000 pages of names while people are lying without due care and help. A nursing home I know of had 30 residents but only seven fish to feed them. How did it intend to divide that fish? There are nursing homes with hungry and terrified residents. These cases are all on the record. The Minister should ask the HSE about them. The Government claims it will send gardaí to investigate the nursing home referred to in last night's programme. Why does the Government not publish all the reports it has? Why does it not demand the HSE answer to it?

The Dáil is taking off next week because there is a bank holiday on Monday and it is proposed to rise in early July. The Labour Party leader proposed earlier that we should sit for another week to bring in the relevant law. We should do so. We want this situation to change. This side of the House is offering the Government the leadership it so sadly lacks. We will facilitate change in every possible way because it must and will happen.

There is little else I can say on the issue. I thank my colleagues on this side of the House who supported me on the motion, in particular, Deputy Twomey. The Minister cannot afford to let this opportunity pass; it must be seized. I do not know the contents of the speech the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, will deliver, although I have a copy of it. Its contents are similar to what the Minister said in 2001. I do not have a copy of the speech the Minister made last year when Deputy Olivia Mitchell and I raised this issue, but I am sure its contents are also similar.

Things must change; the people demand it. Old people in that nursing home, and other homes about which we know, have endured pain, suffering, hunger and torture. However, their suffering, appalling and awful as it is, may bring about change. Some good may come of their awful pain. However, the change needs to happen now. There must be an end to all of this.

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