Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Nursing homes have been the ground zero of the Covid crisis. A total of 1,543 people have died in nursing homes since the start of the crisis and 369 people have died in nursing homes with Covid just in the last month; and my deepest sympathy goes to each and every one of those families. I am not aware of so many people dying so quickly in any other institutions in the history of this State. In the month of January, Covid has been out of control in nursing homes, to devastating effect, with 193 outbreaks in one month.

We in Aontú have been calling for a public investigation into what has happened in the nursing homes since the start of last year. We did this so the State would learn from the mistakes made and make sure it prevented them in the future. The investigation did not happen and the mistakes were repeated. In the last couple of days, I have reached out to many nursing homes around the country, and I have to say the reports coming back from those nursing homes have been devastatingly uniform. The delay in the vaccine has led to hundreds of deaths - that is what I am being told from the nursing homes.

Take Greenpark nursing home in Tuam, for example. It survived thus far without any infections only to witness 35 of the 49 residents test positive in the week they were due to receive the vaccine. One fifth of those residents have now died. In Blackrock Abbey near Dundalk, 14 people have died, one man dying just a week after receiving the first dose of the vaccine. Nazareth House lost 11 people to Covid in two weeks, and I am told the cemetery for those men who died in Nazareth House is akin to a war grave at the moment.

These deaths happened just before the vaccine was to be administered. It took two weeks from when the vaccines arrived in Ireland until they were first administered in a nursing home. That is a scandal. Why did it happen? Why were just 10% of the initial 77,000 vaccines that were administered by mid-January administered in a nursing home? It is a scandal. Who is responsible for it?

It is heartbreaking to see the devastation that has happened in nursing homes the length and breadth of this country. Those nursing homes are still in crisis. What is doubly heart-breaking is that many of those deaths could have been prevented. They could have been prevented with timely action with regard to these vaccines. Yet, from the Minister for Health, every single interviewer struggles to get a specific date on which vaccines will be rolled out. Why is the Minister for Health allergic to specific dates with regard to delivery of vaccines, especially to nursing homes?

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