Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I endorse what my colleague, Senator Boyhan, said earlier about the ordering of business. I respectfully suggest the business of the day should not be a revelation when the Leader gets up to speak. I know that there is goodwill on all sides and that it will take time to get these things sorted but I think what Senator Boyhan said is important.

The HIQA report into the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted a number of issues with which most of us are now very familiar, such as the delays in testing, a lack of adequate personal protective equipment, failures in infection control and, of course, the arm's length relationship between the HSE and the private nursing home sector. Questions have also been asked of HIQA, given that only one nursing home was closed in recent months.

One issue has struck me very much. I wrote an article in the Irish Independentin mid April commenting on this particular crisis. It was probably one of the earlier contributions to the debate but it was a full month into the lockdown. For some weeks previously, I, among others, had been calling for arrangements to be made to prevent cross infection by providing alternative accommodation arrangements for people working in nursing homes and going into private homes to give care. It struck me the media was also struggling to know how to ask the hard questions of the Government at the time. For example, I knew several weeks before it was revealed in the media about the extraordinarily high number of deaths in particular nursing homes. Even though I was in contact with the media about it, the story was struggling to get traction, although there was this very real issue of public concern, namely, whether measures needed to be taken to provide alternative accommodation. As we examine this issue now there has to be a thorough look - not in the spirit of finding blame - at the forces, tensions, pressures and doubts that contributed to our failure to grasp properly the problem that was going on in nursing homes and, sadly, to deal with it in a timely fashion.