Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

Deputy Costello referred to nursing homes and hospitals. However, I must emphasise that whatever obligations are introduced in that area, they will not be blanket ones. We cannot have a situation where every nursing home and hospital death ends up in an inquest. Many people die of natural causes in nursing homes and hospitals. A mandatory inquest every time this happens is not needed.

I know the Deputy is referring to the need for independent scrutiny of deaths in such places, particularly in nursing homes. People cannot simply disappear from a nursing home without anyone inquiring as to what happened. This might be better dealt with by requiring certification of the death in a particular manner rather than having a full formal inquest. If an elderly person dies of old age at 104 years in a nursing home, we do not want to go down the road of having an inquest as well as other matters.

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