Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

It is very important that we respond to the reports in The Irish Times and the Irish Independent today relating to nursing homes and residential centres for persons with disabilities. I am delighted there has been a good debate on the matter so far, but it is important that this House, and ultimately the Government, respond to it. At a minimum, there should be a debate on the issue today and we should invite the Minister, whom I believe will be willing to come here, to discuss it. The 8,000 adults and 400 children with intellectual disabilities are in a particularly vulnerable position and require statutory protection and the protection of an active inspectorate. I also believe our old people in nursing homes demand the support of an active inspectorate. In many cases, the abuse of our old people will go with them to their graves, whereas our youth have lived to tell the tale of abuse in the past.

A good nursing home or residential care centre, and thank God most of them are good, has nothing to fear from inspection, but the ones that are doing wrong need inspection and the vulnerable people living in them require that level of protection. The change in family structures, and in some ways it is a deterioration in our lifestyle, means that many people who previously would have been fit to be supported within the extended family must now go into nursing homes. The least we can do is offer them protection. Some of the reports are really bad. They refer to people being assaulted, restrained, wandering around on public roads-----