Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question, for his continued advocacy for nursing homes and older people and for all the work he does on this. The Covid pandemic bore down very hard on our older people, especially those in nursing homes. In the early days, there were a lot of learning relating to personal protective equipment, PPE, infection prevention and control and best practice.

I also welcome the fact that there will be an inquiry into what happened in respect of Covid over the past three years because there is a lot of learning to be had. In fairness to the Minister for Health at the time, Deputy Harris, he put the expert panel review into nursing homes in place very early in 2020 and all those recommendations have been taken on board and are being put in place. I sympathise with the many families all over the country who lost a loved one in a nursing home during Covid.

See this speech in context