Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

She continued, "A range of problems are being identified by the inspectors of private nursing homes and these include staffing levels and nursing policy issues, maintenance of accommodation standards, hygiene problems, lack of activities for residents, poor record keeping, insufficient or no active involvement from the local authority in fire safety, lack of equipment appropriate to clinical practice, for example, pressure mattresses, etc". She goes on to explain the problems, having said that she is satisfied that the regulations are being implemented properly. This can only mean the regulations are woefully inadequate, based on an Act the Ceann Comhairle introduced in 1990 when he was Minister for Health. I want to put the question the Taoiseach avoided in responding to Deputy Kenny. Will he legislate on this matter before the House rises? Twice in the past three weeks he rushed emergency legislation through this House to save the State money and now he is humming and hawing about when he will legislate on an issue that is so pressing for some of our more vulnerable citizens.

The Taoiseach, in his remark to Deputy Kenny in respect of the HSE, stated they thought they were making progress with the operator. Can I ask him about that in the case of Mr. Peter McKenna, who featured in the programme and with whose family my office has been working over a period to deal with the circumstances that he confronted and that were shown on that programme? He died in awful and painful circumstances, which I will not describe, in Leas Cross. Following continued and persistent pressure from my office, Mr. Martin Hynes, former chief executive of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service, was brought in to investigate the McKenna case. Mr. Hynes reported a couple of months ago. How can the Taoiseach say the HSE thought it was solving these problems and how can the HSE go on television and state that it was as shocked as the rest of us and taken by surprise at the extent of the problems portrayed at Leas Cross? How can they say that when they have the Hynes report, which has not been put into the public domain? Surely they knew. Former civil servants are careful and use euphemistic language, as we know from recent events. When dealing with a Government permanently in office, they take great care to be understated. I know the Taoiseach has a bad record in inspections in north Dublin but surely this defies explanation.

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