Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have met with families from Beaumont nursing home in Cork city. I have heard their heartbreaking stories. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, has promised alternative beds. Residents I have heard from do not want other beds; they want to remain in Beaumont. That is where they themselves chose to be. Beaumont is their home. It is not just a bed; it is where they have established daily routines and made friends and where they have their favourite table and chair to sit down and to chat at. That is the lived reality. I ask the Minister to cast his mind back three years ago, when the HSE tried to close Mount Carmel nursing home in Cork. We led a campaign then, and I remember talking to the people affected when the HSE tried to close the home. They were terrified. These are people who are in a nursing home, who are happy, whose families are supporting them and who have staff who care about them. It is like an extended family. I remember at the time people from Farranree being told to go to Youghal and other people being told to go to Kinsale. These people are now at a certain stage of their lives and the Government is inflicting pain on them with the stress, the nervousness and the fear factor.

Where is the compassion, the dignity and the respect for these people? I implore the Minister and the Minister of State now, before the summer recess comes, to take the action. They are intelligent people; I know they are. They can hear the stories. They have spoken to people in Beaumont. I have talked to people from Montenotte. They feel their nursing home is next. Everyone out there - the people in the nursing homes, their families, the staff and the owners - now feel their nursing home is next. Will the Minister and the Minister of State give them an answer tonight? Or will this be another one of these motions whereby we in Sinn Féin put forward solutions and the Minister goes up to his or her office and puts them up on the shelf there and leaves them there? If Sinn Féin are in government, we will take them down from the shelf and make them policy.

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