Patricia Ryan (Kildare South, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As Sinn Féin's spokesperson for older people, Sinn Féin and I give cautious support to this Bill that seeks to reform HIQA's enforcement powers. Yes, it provides for compliance notices and better collection of nursing home data but it does not go anywhere close to addressing the huge concerns around safeguarding and regulations.

The issues with HIQA have been ongoing since at least 2013 and the Minister of State has been in government for all of this time and still no real action has been taken. The Bill falls short on so many levels such as poorly defined terms, lack of legal clarity and no specific clinical governance. Calls from HIQA to strengthen its governing legislation have fallen on deaf ears. All of these ended ultimately in the tragic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Where was the safeguarding then? There is not even a hint of any plan for a comprehensive social care policy or regulation. There is no joined-up thinking by the Government. Should the likes of supported assisted living, day services or sheltered housing not also come under the same umbrella of regulation as nursing homes? My view is that they should. After all, these services also care for our vulnerable and elderly citizens.

These vulnerable persons and all users of these services need to feel safe in the knowledge their safety and well-being will be absolutely assured. How can this be when the Government has failed yet again to move forward with the adult safeguarding legislation despite many opportunities to do so. Even the HSE safeguarding teams have no legal right to enter private facilities, which my colleague has mentioned. They must be invited in, meaning that private nursing home are effectively self-regulating. I find it very concerning that 80% of our nursing homes are private and almost half of these are operated by private equity firms. We cannot have a fox minding the henhouse situation with little or no regulation. We all know what happened when that happened with the banks. That cannot continue and it has to be sorted out.

The Government's abject failure to progress vital safeguarding legislation is yet another target it has missed. It has missed targets in housing, health and the list goes on. The Government has failed these vulnerable people again and again and they need and deserve to have a comprehensive legal framework in place that they can rely on for their protection. We do not have to go far back to find proof of these failures. Let us remember the Covid-19 pandemic - the Minister of State mentioned it and gave us an opportunity to discuss it - when nursing home residents died alone and without loved ones and front-line care workers struggled to cope, burnt out physically and mentally and often with defective, or worse, no PPE. Where was the safeguarding then? Where was the care partner scheme such as in the North? Why do we not have the same system here? It is badly needed and should be applied here. More importantly, where is the date for the Covid-19 inquiry? There is still no date set for it despite multiple requests. I asked the Minister of State for one last week and I have asked about the Covid inquiry four times this year already. No answers have been forthcoming.

We need clearer legislation; a statutory right of entry for safeguarding and social care teams; a comprehensive social care policy as set out by Sinn Féin's in our priorities for change in our health and social care document; safeguarding teams to be fully resourced and operating from the same page across all CHOs; and to tackle the clinical governance issues to end the practice of private nursing homes effectively self-regulating. What we need at this point is a change of government and a Sinn Féin government will do all of that.

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