Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

The Minister of State is clearly aware that as recently as Monday last the HSE was still stating that the promised consultation process relating to Abbeyleix community nursing unit and the care of older people in the midlands has not yet commenced. This process was promised last year and it is now May 2012. Nothing has been heard about the process in all of the months that have passed. As the Minister of State indicated, on 27 April last, two days before a second major rally in support of the unit, the HSE advised the process would be commencing soon. We have heard this before and I am of the view that greater certainty is required in respect of this matter. I would also like an assurance to the effect that the process will take place.

Will the Minister of State admit that the policy of downgrading public nursing homes and of closing some is completely wrong and that it must be reversed? When addressing the annual conference of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, the Minister, Deputy Reilly, stated that not a single acute hospital bed that has been closed will be reopened any time soon. What is the position with regard to closing public nursing homes? Where are people who are being displaced to go? We are heading for a calamitous situation in the context of the closure of beds in acute hospital settings and also, perhaps, with regard to the imminent closure of public nursing homes in some circumstances. Ultimately, the position will become impossible.

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