Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputy very much for raising this issue. It is a very serious and shocking situation. The revelations on "RTÉ Investigates", in particular, must have been deeply traumatic for families with loved ones in nursing homes generally but particularly in the two nursing homes that were covered by "RTÉ Investigates". It is particularly concerning that the regulatory authority did not capture or unearth this, particularly in one nursing home, in terms of its reviews. HIQA, when it was established, came out of Quality and Fairness, the health strategy in 2002. I was involved in it at the time, setting it up on an interim basis. Prior to that, we did not have a quality authority in health. It has done a lot of impactful and effective work over the years, but this is deeply concerning. There has to be a review by HIQA itself too, in terms of what went wrong here and in terms of not revealing what was subsequently revealed.

I pay tribute to the "RTÉ Investigates" team on this. Methodologies may have to change in relation to inspection. Penalties also have to be reviewed in terms of either fines or, indeed, closure. Closure creates its own issues in respect of alternative locations but there have to be real consequences for horrific treatment of senior citizens in this manner. That is something I believe in. The family of Audeon Guy have spoken eloquently and very distressingly on their family situation and their acceptance of and belief in the impartiality of the HIQA reports as they checked the record of given homes following the inspection reports.

On our overall system, there is the public service sector side of it in which we invested significantly in the last number of years but a lot of that investment was in modernising and refurbishing district hospitals which had been on a list for quite a long time in terms of the necessity for refurbishment. The HSE works with certain homes in providing HSE beds, particularly for dementia cases where extra and additional supports are required. Home care has also expanded enormously. In the last four years alone we have doubled provision in home care from about €400 million to €800 million and consequently added additional hours and so on. I will come back on this later.

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