Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)

Go raibh maith agat. We have been here before. It has been 20 long years, as other Members said, since we saw the distressing footage of conditions at Leas Cross nursing home. Unfortunately, what we saw on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme replicated those horrific and dark days. I thank Aoife Hegarty, the "RTÉ Investigates" programme and, of course, Clare Doyle, the whistleblower, for exposing these abuses.

What we saw on the programme aired was simply elder abuse. Older people were manhandled, pushed around and, heartbreakingly, forgotten. It was tough watching for me to listen to a loved one calling out for help and nobody answering. I cannot but imagine how the families of these people who had effectively lost their dignity in these homes must have felt when they saw the programme. The lack of basic medical equipment such as hoists, wipes, gloves or even clean bedsheets was alarming to say the least. What we saw in these programmes was simply profiteers more worried about profit and lining their pockets than caring about basic human dignity. The joy of the staff rewarded with four packets of wipes from a manager is an unwanted highlight from this investigation. The lack of gloves, incontinence pads and clean sheets was up there with the horrific treatment of our fellow human beings.

As I said, this is all about the bottom line for these companies. It is about how much profit these uncaring companies can milk out of our older and disabled population. As was said, 80% of Irish nursing homes are private or voluntary and just ten investment funds own one third of all the beds in the system. An influx of investment funds in recent years has left our country with the most privatised system of care in the EU. As my party leader said yesterday, some things have changed since Leas Cross. HIQA was set up to set standards, to inspect and to shut down non-compliant public and private nursing homes. Clearly, HIQA is failing in its duty and in my opinion and that of many other people, it is now not fit for purpose. I listened and watched the torment of the family of Audeon Guy. As so many families in their situation do, the first place they looked for information on somewhere to take care of their father was the HIQA report on the nursing home. They were failed in this report, which painted a picture for them that was far from the reality we all saw for their father in these programmes. Since last week, so many families have said that they rely on information from HIQA. The cases we saw last week showed families unwittingly putting their relatives in harm's way.

HIQA's practices must be urgently reviewed but is it best practice to ask HIQA to also conduct an independent review into all nursing homes? After all, it failed to identify glaring abuses of practice that some journalists and a carer with a camera found. Of course, they had the ambition to find those abuses. This would seem not to be an isolated incident. Since the first programme aired, my colleagues and I have had a growing number of complaints from family members from around the country. The simple fact concerning this profit-driven industry is that so many families tell me the only contact they receive from the nursing home is the letter demanding payment. There is nothing about the care for their mother, their father or their relation and what they are receiving.

An area raised by the Minister of State and one I wish to raise concerns those families who look after their father, mother or relation at home. Since the horrific programme aired last week, I have been contacted by a considerable number of people who take care of their loved ones in this way. They do so because they believe it is the best place for them. Many families are now looking to do likewise. As the Minister of State said, there is a serious cost in this regard. The Government needs to do more to help families in this situation. The Government should consider opening a fair deal-type system to families to provide care at home. It should look at making the housing adaption grants easier to obtain. Additionally, of course, as was said, it should abolish the means test for carers. This would allow a family member to receive some payment for the work they carry out.

I agree with what the Tánaiste said today when he stated in response to my colleague Deputy Sherlock that we are overdependent on private nursing homes in this country. We are seriously overdependent in this regard. We need to invest more in public nursing homes. I use this opportunity to once again highlight the magnificent care provided by the staff and management of St. Vincent's Hospital in my hometown of Athy. We are waiting on a new 92-bed hospital. I welcome the progress made to date, but this is the type of care facility the Government needs to invest in and the State needs to look to in the future. We need proper staff levels and properly paid staff and we need to take care, as the Minister of State said, of older people once and for all. We cannot let what we saw continue.

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