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

I commend Deputy Colm Burke on the Bill. I welcome the opportunity to speak as it will allow me to talk about the care of our older people. In this regard we are really talking about ourselves because, if we are lucky, old age will come to us all. I am sure that most of us here would like to live independently at home for as long as possible and then, if necessary, with some form of independent but sheltered arrangement in the community. The word "independent" matters. It is one of the great injustices of old age that just as we gain the wisdom of years we can so easily lose our say, our choices and our autonomy, going from managing homes, families and businesses to "Does she take sugar in her tea?". This is why for older people, independence, home care and home supports must be high on the agenda of a modern republic.

Tonight I specifically want to address the deaths of men and women in nursing homes. For some, the nursing home was their home. We paid a heavy price in my constituency of Kildare North. In April of this year, there was sixfold increase in deaths in nursing homes in Kildare. Sixfold is critical. It is huge. Husbands, wives, grandparents, aunties and uncles died unnecessarily. Some of them may only have had five or six years left, but five or six years is a long time in the life of a grandparent or a grandchild. Five years can see a newly born grandchild, a grandchild having a first day at school, or a young adult granddaughter getting married and starting a family of her own. As a result of Covid-19, these years and experiences were stolen. In north Kildare, their stealing haunts us and it is right that it should. Last month Professor Denis Cusack, the county coroner for Kildare, published his report into nursing home deaths in Kildare. Professor Cusack's interviews on "Drivetime" and KFM stopped me in my tracks. His concern, shock and compassion were palpable. Suddenly there was an official warmth and openness to replace the certain coldness and closedness that seemed to have taken hold.

There was a sense that we should not be looking because mistakes were made and blame might follow but nobody wanted blame then and nobody wants it now. I said that to Deputy Harris when he was the Minister for Health. What we want is to learn because if we do not learn, we risk a repeat and we simply cannot allow that to happen in the coming winter.

Out of 139 cited Covid-19 deaths in Kildare over this period, 113 were in nursing homes. In a reply to a parliamentary question the HSE told me that neither the executive nor the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC, collected testing data prior to the transfer of patients from hospital to nursing homes. There were over 60 such transfers in north Kildare and when I highlighted this, there was not much interest. It is a hard fact of politics now that for some Mean Girls has more resonance than dead girls, especially when those dead girls are old. However, the coroner in confirming their deaths, brought these people's voices back to life. He spoke of the atypical presentation of Covid, the lethargy, the loss of appetite that was not recognised, the quietness and the tests that were left undone. In this, Professor Cusack has done the dead in Kildare and the State some service and I thank him for that. He says that we need to know why Kildare was so disproportionately affected and he is right. I thought at the time that perhaps there were more nursing homes in Kildare than in other counties but that simply was not the case. Kildare suffered very badly. We cannot and must not wash our hands of this because for the dead, the unique and the loved, we must hold firm.

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