Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I take the point made by the Deputy. We must treat the two issues in parallel. Regardless of the efforts made, or the success or failure in any specific nursing home, we must still ensure that State funding is going to these homes to protect the residents. In parallel to this, we must take the patient safety and regulatory issues very seriously. To that effect, just last night, the Patient Safety (Notifiable Incidents and Open Disclosure) Bill 2019 finished its passage through the Houses. It is going to the President for his signature now. One of the critical elements of that legislation, of which I know the Deputy was supportive, is that it extends HIQA's powers to allow it to investigate individual patient safety issues, instead of the power it did have, which was a general investigative one, which had not been satisfactory.

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