Rónán Mullen (Independent)

We had a useful debate in the House last Thursday on the fair deal nursing home scheme. It would be appropriate for us to keep the focus on nursing home care in this House in the light of what continues to emerge about the quality of some of our nursing homes. It is fair to say that the media is doing us some service in this area by turning the spotlight on proceedings regarding some nursing homes. In today's newspapers and in the media the focus is on yet another nursing home but what we are coming across are the same worrying accounts of neglect in various forms, whether it is nursing homes being too cold and people being at risk of hypothermia or nutrition problems where it was not even certain in one case whether a particular elderly resident had eaten in the past 24 hours, and there was no meat to be found in the place. It is quite disturbing.

We could take two views of that. We could say on the one hand this coverage is evidence that HIQA is doing its work - I gather this is the fourth such nursing home to be at risk or closed down at the request of HIQA since it began its investigations in 2009 - or we could ask whether such investigations are taking place quickly enough and whether enough is being done to take action once complaints have been made. In the case before us today, the Creevelea nursing home, it appears that a complaint was made about that nursing home over a year ago. If there is a problem at a particular point in time we must look closely at the procedures then in place for dealing with allegations about the quality of care. The persons in these nursing homes cannot wait for their champions to arrive.

It is often said in this House that we can join in issues when a debate is being organised around a particular Department's remit but this House should see itself as the place in which we look for a precise account from the relevant Minister about what is done in these nursing homes once a complaint is made.

I asked last Thursday whether it is considered to be best policy to seek to close down a nursing or if there is a procedure in place for bringing in a person to effectively run the place as an examiner once a severe complaint is made and whether there is provision for such persons being able to go in and run a nursing home to make sure, once a serious complaint is made and a prima facie case for neglect established, that the nursing home is then run by a third party on behalf of the State while it is getting itself sorted out because seeking the closure of a nursing home may not be in the best interests of the residents in all of those cases.

I ask the Leader to arrange for an early engagement between the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, or the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, and the Members of this House where we would hear precisely what happens from beginning to end once a complaint is made about a possible or probable neglect in a nursing home, including the procedures and resources that are in place to make sure that action is taken as quickly as possible-----