John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I am sharing time with Deputies Ó Caoláin, Cowley, Finian McGrath, Healy, Connolly and James Breen.

I thank the Fine Gael Party for bringing this motion before the House. Yesterday in the House we spoke about the new trend towards privatisation in the health service. There is a section of the health service, however, which has been privatised for quite some time, namely, the nursing homes area. It is a lucrative business. It is a business and not a vocation for this new breed of entrepreneur which might as well be selling carpets or second-hand cars for all the sensitivity shown sometimes to the elderly and most vulnerable people in our community.

That is shameful and clearly these people are being treated as a commodity. We are talking about the old, the infirm, the sick being treated as a commodity. The less regulation we have the more profit they can make. That is the bottom line. We could be cynical and say the Government is delaying while they make more money on the backs of these very vulnerable people. We are heading now towards the lowest common denominator. When I spoke in the House previously about this I gave examples of what was happening. I was told this by a nurse who had contacted me and these stories are really quite appalling. She spoke of a nursing home in Cabra where she works. Older people there would sometimes wet themselves at night. They were not properly dried and the uric acid would give rise to bed sores. Why did this happen? It was because the staff members were poorly paid and were not properly motivated. This is what is going on.

To save money sometimes they would not get the extra glass of milk they asked for. If they were given bread, it was pre-buttered. Skimping on basic necessities, they were kept downstairs in the cellar very often. As she said, they were very often doped out of their minds with Valium so that they could go to bed earlier. This is what is going on and why we need inspections. I ask the Minister of State not to delay any further on this. It is going on wholesale because people want to make money. That is at the root of the problem.

The Minister of State told me in the House on 21 June last that he would come back with information. At that stage I had said there were 33 nursing homes that had received adverse inspection reports. The Minister of State said that he would get back to me and that it was not a problem. He said: "It is not our intention to defend nursing homes which do not provide an acceptable level of care, particularly where the Department has assisted people to move into long-term care."

The Minister of State promised, on 21 June 2005, that he would get back with that information about the 33 nursing homes that had received adverse reports, and I am still waiting.

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