John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)

We have been here before. We have expressed the same degree of disgust and anger at what we saw on the “RTÉ Investigates” television programme recently but we have not done anything in between times to make sure it does not happen again. There is a lot that we could have done. For example, the community nursing homes are a great idea, as outlined by Deputy O'Donoghue earlier. We have them in Kilkenny at Thomastown, Castlecomer, Kilmoganny, Graiguenamanagh, Freshford and Callan. Why do we not fund them? Why do we not give them the money to have a proper community facility to look after the elderly in our communities? I have travelled to those different homes and I have to say I have always been impressed by the business model and by the level of care that those in the homes receive. Yet, we totally ignore that and we make them fight for every shilling or euro that they get.

Big business seems to be the favoured way of delivering nursing homes. It is not a good way because it is driven by profit where the profit is euro, whereas in the community setting, it is not euro but it is seeing the smile on the resident’s face. That is what it is. It is about choice. The Government can have its big business model and it can also have a well-funded option in terms of community care. I urge the Minister to tip the balance in favour of community care.

I urge the Minister to tell the discharge nurses not to give the commitment that certain plans will be followed when the patient is taken home because they do not have the staff. They release the bed, the patient goes home and then the family have to carry the can fully. At the end of that, the person goes to a nursing home.

It is shocking the way recent Governments have behaved in that they have not recognised the true value of community homes. I remember during Covid that the Taiwanese funded a lot of the equipment that went to care homes throughout the country. That needs to be put on record, as does the issue of care champions and what they have done. Where is the Covid inquiry? We want to know what happened. That Covid inquiry is probably on the long finger somewhere and it needs to be addressed. It is not right that we would announce it and talk about it, and then not get into the detail of what happened to families and elderly people in the course of the Covid times. I ask that this also be looked at.

I ask for the focus to be taken away from private homes, that we would not support them and that we would be very critical and emphatic in our actions against them when they breach the rules.

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