Dáil debates
Wednesday, 2 July 2025
Nursing Homes: Motion [Private Members]
3:30 am
Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
What was shown on the "RTÉ Investigates" programme - well done to those who made it - was disgraceful. We have many fine private nursing homes, but when we allow the development of a for-profit model for investors - there are large-scale investors in a large proportion of these nursing homes, as the Minister of State knows - that have borrowed money at low interest rates and there is no sectoral agreement on workers, we are looking for trouble.
We have a lax regulatory regime whereby HIQA simply does not have the powers in respect of this sector that it should have, as the Minister of State has acknowledged, to be fair. The "RTÉ Investigates" programme happened because we let it happen. HIQA was in nursing homes not long before the programme was made and it took a significant period of time before it reassessed one. This is when things fall through the cracks.
We have a real problem in this country when it comes to managing nursing home care and care for the elderly. We need a complete reboot of the statutory home care scheme to support people to stay in their homes. There is the scandalous issue of the thousands of under-65s who are left in nursing home care.
There are practical measures we need to take. In the new national development plan, we need massive public investment in public nursing homes. We need one in Roscrea. It has been promised for decades. To be fair to the people of Roscrea, I do not think there is any town in Ireland that is more deserving of a proper nursing home to replace the Dean Maxwell. We need them all over the country.
We also need to start giving consideration to our demographics, in particular how many people will be over the age 65, 70 and 80 in the years to come. We are not prepared for this. I speak with a lot of knowledge on this. We are not preparing for issues relating to more and more people living longer and having dementia.
The type of care we provide also needs to change. Many public nursing homes have to take high-dependency patients purely because private nursing homes cannot, in some cases, take them or, perhaps in a minority of cases, will not take them, something the Minister of State knows. I know this because I have tabled parliamentary questions, the replies to which show that, in many cases, people are left in hospitals for months, if not years.
Collectively, we need large-scale public investment in nursing homes. We need a sectoral agreement to pay workers properly. We need a regulatory regime that ensures these people are not let down and nursing homes and the standards they have to maintain do not fall through the cracks.
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