Liam Twomey (Wexford, Fine Gael)

Leas Cross is a legacy of gross failure and abuse of the elderly by this Government. It is high time this commission was set up to investigate what happened in Leas Cross and, more appropriately, why the Government failed so dramatically to protect patients in that nursing home and why it took it so long to respond to what was happening there. The Minister involved should have known to some degree that a serious problem existed regarding the care of the elderly in nursing homes.

The "Prime Time" programme was broadcast on RTE almost two years ago. It is amazing how little has been achieved in those two years since this programme made by the national public service broadcaster showed the absolutely despicable behaviour in Leas Cross. The Government is still trotting along, barely getting things done and barely looking after patients in nursing homes.

It is wrong that no one has been held to account by the Government. Will the Minister explain the meaning of the term, "a systems failure"? It means the failure of the Government to react in a timely and appropriate fashion to protect the patients for which the Minister for Health and Children is responsible. It amazes me how slowly everything happened, even when what was happening at Leas Cross was public knowledge. The only good result was that Leas Cross nursing home closed.

There was a delay in the publication of the O'Neill report because the people who were named in the report wanted to have their say. They did not want to say, "We are sorry for what happened" and they did not want to explain how this failure happened but rather they wanted to find an opt-out clause and to scapegoat and blame somebody else. Nobody took responsibility. The Minister to some degree and especially the Government did not investigate the situation. Why did nobody take responsibility? When did people know? Where are some of those people now? Some of those heavily involved continue to work for the HSE and some were asked by the HSE to draw up sets of standards for nursing homes. This is the sort of half-baked attitude that the Government took to what happened in Leas Cross. The Government did not stand back and regard it as an absolute disgrace because the Irish health care service has no great ethos of protecting patients.

The Minister has always dismissed my proposal for a patient safety authority by saying it is not needed. If there was ever a time when a patient safety authority was needed, it is now. We need to change the ethos of the health care services and put the patient at the centre with everything else on the outside. HIQA is not a patient safety authority but is concerned with procedures and standards. The social services inspectorate section of HIQA will inquire into standards but very little else in HIQA is responsible for patient safety. There is still no definitive set of standards for nursing home inspection on this, the eve of the general election 2007, even though this crisis has been in existence for more than two years. The standards being considered by HIQA are still in draft form. This shows what is going wrong. Our ability to react in a timely manner to severe crises within the Irish health care service is shockingly poor and is a result of the lack of concern by the Government. These concerns were expressed by the officials of the Department of Health and Children, but they cannot speak out in the same way as I can. However, reading between the lines in the health strategy published in November 2001 it seems the officials proposed the need to deal with issues of patient safety and equality of service within the public health system. Nothing happened because both the Minister and I know that the big improvements that need to be made will cost money.

There has been a failure to respect old people. Of the €400 million put aside to fund the repayments of the illegal nursing home charges, only €39 million has been repaid. The Minister has a very poor attitude towards elderly patients and their care.

Even though I welcome this commission of inquiry, it seems to be a case of fobbing off and the Minister has not concentrated on the so-called systems failures that caused this situation.

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