Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)

It is another scandal. It is another failure of our State to protect our most vulnerable. The failings of care that have been revealed in the "RTÉ Investigates" programme are horrifying. Vulnerable residents were left unsupervised, there was a lack of basic supplies and there was the rough handling of older people. One of the nursing homes featured is Beneavin Manor in my constituency of Dublin North-West. Members of the public throughout the constituency, and the country, who have family in nursing homes are distressed and worried. How can they trust that their loved ones are being cared for properly after seeing these failures?

Paul Guy, whose father was one of the residents highlighted in the "RTÉ Investigates" programme, reached out to me and I spoke to him today. Paul and his family described the shock and distress at seeing footage of their 80-year-old father being roughly handled at Beneavin Manor in Glasnevin. Paul said that no one should be handled like their father was, that these were human people who lost their dignity, and no one should have to go through that. The family had relied upon HIQA reports on Beneavin Manor for guidance in selecting a nursing home. The most recent publicly available HIQA inspection for Beneavin Manor dates from November 2024. It references residents being happy, inspectors finding the centre well managed and the quality and safety of the services provided being of a good standard. Clearly, as the "RTÉ Investigates" programme showed, this was not the reality for elderly people resident there such as Paul's father.

Shockingly, Paul told me today that no one from HIQA had been in touch directly with him to give him an apology for how his father was treated. He and his family have not been given the decency of an apology from HIQA and the State regarding their failures to protect his father and ensure he received adequate care and was protected from harm in a nursing home. Will the Minister of State and HIQA give him and his family the decency of an apology for the State's failure to safeguard his father?

Why does it take the airing of vulnerable adults being treated terribly on national television before we see action on this? The question is whether we will see action on this. The key issue Paul asked me to raise was that he wants to see immediate action from the Government, as set out by Safeguarding Ireland, to implement the framework for adult safeguarding, as published by the Law Reform Commission in April 2024, and to get the interagency working group up and running, with an appropriately skilled senior civil servant seconded to it, to implement and put in place a national safeguarding authority. Will the Minister of State commit to Paul and to the families affected to moving immediately to implement this?

Implementing this framework is the first step towards ensuring residents in care homes are protected. Ultimately, they are not being treated with the care or dignity they deserve and the Government has a responsibility to ensure this does not happen again. We still do not ensure that the delivery of care for the most vulnerable people in our society is done through a human rights approach, one that puts their dignity, and the State's responsibility to guarantee their safety and protection, central to service provision, whether it is children in State care, children in homelessness or adults who are resident in nursing homes. This is just not good enough.

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