Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to say this Bill addresses enormous problems in the care of older people in Ireland but it does not really address the profound problems we have in that provision. The past 15 months have exposed the inadequacies of the model of residential and long-term elderly care in Ireland, particularly around staffing levels, medical expertise, resources including personal protective equipment and payment and treatment of staff. There are limitations in the model we have. As Deputy Shortall said, 20 years ago the ratio of nursing homes was 80% public and 20% private. Now that has reversed completely and it has been Government policy over the last 25 years to incentivise tax breaks for wealthy individuals and companies to invest in large-scale private residential nursing homes. In Clondalkin, two multi-bed nursing homes are being built at the moment. The model has compromised care of the elderly. I would like to see it reversed and a model in which 80% of nursing homes or all of them are publicly run for the good of our elderly citizens. That is the way I ideologically see it. It even makes economic sense, rather than giving it to the private sector.

A number of Deputies have mentioned the fair deal scheme, which has been quite controversial since its inception over a decade ago. Some people have huge difficulties with it but, in some ways, it shifts the onus onto families where the cost has shifted to the private sector. There are huge gaps in the fair deal scheme in relation to those who can or cannot pay and the money going to the private sector. Alarm bells always ring when the private sector sees this as a model to make profits, while the State has given up its obligation to care for older people. There are very good, well-run nursing homes in the private sector but I do not think any healthcare should be in private hands, especially the way we have it now. During the pandemic, there were gross inadequacies around private healthcare.

As Deputy O'Dowd has stipulated, there is an onus on the Government to call a public inquiry into all deaths in nursing homes. Just over half of those who have died in the South of Ireland have been in nursing homes. They were extremely difficult circumstances for all the people working in that setting. There were times when people did not get to say goodbye to their loved ones. It is profoundly difficult. The least we and the Government can do is have a public inquiry into what happened in the last 15 or 16 months during the pandemic. It is important that families and loved ones have some closure about what happened to their loved ones and that this never happens to anybody in those circumstances again.

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