Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am glad to speak on the Bill. The aspects of the Bill include mandatory information provision. It mandates that registered providers of nursing homes and residential services, excluding those for people with disabilities, must regularly supply key operational data to HIQA, as drafted in the Bill. I have often spoken to HIQA. I do not have a lot of faith in HIQA, as the Minister of State is aware, and I have good reason for that. The whole saga of what went on in the nursing homes during Covid was diabolical. I am not blaming the nursing homes in most cases. The HSE literally abandoned them and hospitals sent patients with Covid into nursing homes without even telling them. Such carry-on was not bordering on criminal; in my opinion, it was completely criminal. It then denied them oxygen and the oxygen for those nursing homes was diverted and taken away from them. The HSE literally procured it without any legal basis. It just took it away from them and let them do without it.

The Minister of State is aware of a case that I wish to raise with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle. It refers to St. Conlon’s nursing home in Nenagh. I do not know it that well but having contacted many people, I understand there is a huge saga going on at St. Conlon’s. HIQA had condemned it but then gave it a licence for one year, and one year only, because it was waiting to get the new state-of-the-art St. Conlon’s nursing home built. That is now built and it is a model of state-of-the-art provision. The families, the patients, their advocates, the staff of St. Conlon’s and the community were looking forward to moving to this state-of-the-art premises. Everything was fine but, hey presto, because of the pressure on University Hospital Limerick, HIQA and everybody else decided that it was okay to take over the new building at St. Conlon’s as a step-down emergency department to try to put a sticking plaster over the fundamental problems at University Hospital Limerick, and they would override the licence issued, which was only in place for one year.

Sandra Broderick of the HSE said not to mind HIQA, she would tell it what to do. Imagine that. What power or what teeth does the Government have? How can the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, preside over an organisation when such a senior HSE official will say to not mind HIQA and she would tell it what to do? She said HIQA will do as she tells it. That is scandalous and outrageous. We have bodies and then more bodies set up for everything. They have an office with plush furniture, a CEO, a deputy CEO and God knows who else, and a brass plate on the wall telling the country who they are and that they are registered. Then, they are toothless, useless and fruitless. That is what they are if a department official or a senior nursing manager can say to not mind HIQA and that she would tell it what to do.

I know of many nursing homes that were closed down by stealth in the last 15 years, including a lovely one in Carrick-on-Suir. HIQA kept visiting them and visiting them, and then punishing them. The way it punished them was by cutting out so many beds, which restricted their turnover and they could not do the work they were asked to do because they could not get funding from the banks due to the limited capacity for financial return. HIQA closed that down in the time of the former Minister, James Reilly, and I have raised the issue before in the House.

At this point, I am talking about St. Conlon’s. HIQA had an order to close it down because it was not fit for purpose, so a new one was built, costing €50 million, which is not small money, and it was ready to go into operation. Now, because someone decided it would be taken over, the licence in place prior to the condemning of the old St. Conlon’s has now been issued again and it can carry on. HIQA will do what the management in the mid-western area want it to do because, in their own words, it will do what it is told to do. What kind of a body is that? What kind of a joke is this legislation that we are bringing in when we know what went on in nursing homes throughout Covid and at other times?

We have continuous daily and weekly lobbying by the private nursing homes, rightly so, against what the Government is paying the public nursing homes. It is scandalously unfair. It is discrimination. It cannot be legal that the Government can give so much per week for a patient in a public nursing home but give 30% or 40% less to the private providers. That is unjust and unfair in any walk of life. How are the private providers going to continue? They do not have the money to pay the staff properly and the staff are leaving to go into the public sector. It is discrimination.

Deputy Michael Collins raised in the House the case of a nursing home in west Cork that closed down. It is now being offered as an IPAS centre. Follow the money. If Government does not give fair play and a level playing field and does not ensure Departments pay private nursing homes the same rate as the public ones, there is an unjust imbalance. What is going on in Nenagh beats Banagher, and Nenagh is not too far from Banagher.

It beats Banagher to me that a place was condemned, a new building built and everything ready with patients, their families and staff so looking forward to going into it, and then because there is a problem in Limerick, HIQA can be instructed to turn a blind eye and say the old St. Conlon's is fine and the patients can be left there, even though it was under orders to close. Where do we go with that or how more clear could it be that it is so inadequate, not independent and can be manipulated? What confidence does that give to any of the families taking cases now against the HSE for the loss of lives and the degrading treatment of their loved ones?

Deputy Peadar Tóibín raised one case. I think the Minister of State said she is aware of it. It is so shocking that it happened but that happened in many cases, and not because in many cases the nursing homes wanted that to happen. It was because the HSE starved them of everything, seconded the oxygen, and seconded the different materials, PPE gear and everything else away from them. This was by order of the HSE, and it left them to fend for themselves. Then loved ones could not get in to visit them. It was the most cruel situation that ever existed and now the Government does not want it investigated. I attended a meeting here with other colleagues and the former Taoiseach about the Covid inquiry. There was a kind of laugh around the room. It was said that we cannot have an inquiry as Ireland is too small a place and everybody knows everyone. That is why I said all the time that we need an independent inquiry from without this country, and people who have no contacts with Ireland, who could come in and do a proper inquiry and investigation but, no ,too much might be found out then, and we might get to the bottom of something.

While there is a merry-go-round of cover-up and the Department's and HSE's mishandling, the buck stops at the Minister of State's table, especially with regard to elderly people, and indeed with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly and the Secretary General of the Department of Health.

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