Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

More than 1,000 people in nursing homes across the State have been killed by Covid-19, at least that is according to the HSE figures. Over 112 of these deaths occurred in my constituency, Kildare North, where we paid a remarkably heavy price. We learned from the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response last Tuesday that the HSE, the Department of Health and the Minister for Health had no proper plan for protection in place in nursing homes, despite knowing that our elderly were at particular risk, despite having the advance warning from Italy and despite health care workers begging for PPE. Our elderly could cocoon in their own homes but if they were living in nursing homes, they had to take their chances with the virus. This is a devastating inequality for those who died without having their hands held by their loved ones, the families grieving without the comfort of a traditional Irish funeral and the health care workers who risked their own lives to protect these dying patients without adequate PPE.

The Minister was right to seek additional acute hospital beds. I would have done the same but he was wrong to relegate the nursing homes to an inferior position and to allow age to place a discount on people's lives. The Department was careless, so much so, according to HSE figures, that the equivalent of three jumbo jets crashed across our country and everyone on board died. If planes had actually crashed, we would have had days of national mourning. Luckily, there has hardly been a murmur so far. The story in The Irish Timesthis morning about the HSE figures make it even more important to have an independent investigation. Any investigation must be independent because, in view of the loss of lives, we cannot have the HSE and the Department of Health investigating themselves. These tragic deaths were not inevitable. In Kildare North and across the State, people want to know the hows, the whys and the who's, not for blame - because that is just finger-pointing - but in the context of accountability. Accountability makes us hold up our hands, take responsibility and learn. History shows us that we need this from the HSE and the Department of Health.

I previously asked the Minister to publish details of the fair deal private nursing homes pricing mechanism review. Despite sending a reminder, I am still waiting for a reply. We should have this information in order to establish whether there is a correlation between homes deemed unviable by the review and clusters of Covid-19. If there is a correlation, I ask the Minister to take these private nursing homes into public ownership. Care of the old people should not be commodified, privatised or monetised. Will the Minister establish an independent investigation into the deaths at nursing homes? Will he agree that in the case of a correlation between these figures that these nursing homes will be taken into public ownership? That would be a first step towards the single-tier health system that would befit a real republic.

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