Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The HSE established the working group on nursing home inspections and registrations in July 2005, shortly after the organisation was set up. It completed the report in early summer. The existence of the HSE working group report has been a matter of public record for some time. Deputy Kenny is asking me to ask it to engage in a matter that it has finished. This has been referred to publicly on a number of occasions, including in previous Dáil debates when the Minister for Health and Children answered questions. I am answering the questions today and the Minister for Health and Children has answered questions.

Among the recommendations of the report was the recruitment of dedicated inspection teams throughout the country. These teams would have staff with nursing, medical and mental health experience. They would also have other professionals available to them. The inspection teams would all work from the same standardised checklist to ensure conformity across the system. In addition, all inspections would be unannounced.

The working group's approach now underpins the inspection process for private nursing homes. The issues raised in the report underline the reason for the Government's decision to put the social services inspectorate on a statutory basis within the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA. It will be independent and will create a thorough and robust system of inspections.

When contracting with private nursing homes, the HSE does not send patients whose level of dependency is unsuited to the facility available. In a number of instances, the HSE may decide that a particular private home is unsuited to the needs of high dependency patients, but it does not mean the same home is unsuited to patients with lower levels of dependencies. The HSE has made important improvements to its nursing home inspections process since the working group report was completed in early summer. It has been working to standardise the reports and has engaged with the nursing home inspection teams and the private nursing home sectors.

With the greatest respect for Deputy Kenny, what he has asked me to do has already been done. The legislation——

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