Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I share that concern. It is not exactly clear. It may be in the small print but I cannot see where that power has been given to HIQA.

In a general sense, I welcome the Minister's amendments relating to extending the powers of HIQA in certain respects. Of course, those powers will only be useful if the consequent resources are provided. What are the proposals to increase the resources of HIQA to enable it to carry out these additional duties?

I will make a point in respect of a matter that arose during this morning's meeting of the Joint Committee on Health, when the Secretary General of the Department appeared before us. About a year or so into the Covid pandemic, an expert group was established to report on the response to Covid-19 in private nursing homes. One of the recommendations made by that group was to carry out a full review of the use of private nursing homes in the context of the extent they are being used at present, with 80% of all nursing homes now in the private sector. Serious issues undoubtedly arose with Covid-19 in respect of the shortcomings of such a heavy dependency on private nursing homes. I asked the Secretary General where that review was at and whether it had commenced. He and none of the people with him were aware of that recommendation from the expert group. This is an important area.

In 2020, I recall that then Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, said on one occasion that we needed to do a comprehensive review of the model of care that we are using for the care of older people, meaning that congregated settings in the private sector are not necessarily the best care arrangements to provide. Of course, the vast majority of older people want to have support to stay in their own homes. I am concerned that this important recommendation from the expert group could be lost. I ask the Minister to respond regarding where the review is at present or, if he cannot answer, to at least come back to me with a note.

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