Brian Stanley
Laois · Independent · Ireland
“We are going through an epidemic of domestic abuse and violence. In 2025, the Garda had over 67,000 calls in relation to domestic abuse. Seven women were murdered last year, and in many of those cases, it was by a family member, a partner or somebody known closely to the victim.”
“Those fundamentals cannot be ignored. Are supporters of partition really saying that we can continue on this small island with 14 different departments in each jurisdiction working back to back, often in competition with each other? Are they saying that having Twenty-six Counties in the EU and Six Counties out of it makes economic sense?”
“Those who still argue for partition ignore the fact that in a reunified 32-county state, the pension liabilities of those workers in the Six Counties who accrued pension entitlements by paying into the British national insurance system and the British exchequer or employment pensions would receive that portion of their pension liability.”
“Unfortunately, I do not get any sense of urgency from the Minister of State that we are going to have laws introduced in September or October, and that is the crucial issue. Yes, we have rules now, and she listed them out in relation to the signs. However, they are being ignored.”
“The cost is €2.6 billion for the diplomatic mission alone. There is also MI6 and the massive military machine and capacity, including the army, the navy and the Royal Air Force. I saw a figure of €60.2 billion for 2025 and 2026. That amount is due to rise sharply to meet its increased military capabilities.”
“The issue I am raising with the Minister of State is the increase in the number of injuries, including those involving young children, relating to e-scooters and e-bikes. Ten have been killed.”
The complete record
Every one of 996 lines we hold for Brian Stanley, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 16 of 20.
“Only 35 GPs out of 67 in the county take medical cards. At least 700 GPs are to retire between the years 2023 and 2026. There are not enough new GPs in training and in many cases, when they qualify they are faced with a choice of trying to establish a general practice or emigrating. Some emigrate because of the cost of trying to establish a practice, pay for premises, hire equipment, hire staff, etc., and the long hours. We have a chronic shortage due to the lack of forward planning by all Governments over the previous 20 years. Solutions are needed now. We need a major ramp-up of directly employed, salaried GPs working in general practice. Last week, the Tánaiste said here he is in favour of this as well.”
“We know from several sources that the number of GPs per head of population is way too low and is completely out of sync with our European neighbours and other developed countries. The Irish College of General Practitioners has stated that we have a huge deficit. It has identified several counties that have a chronic shortage, including County Laois. The Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, concurs and has highlighted this fact as well. The State has only 60% of the GPs per head of population that Germany and other EU states have. Some EU states are even more favourable than that. The IMO reckons one GP per 900 people is required to provide adequate community care. The World Health Organization says it is one per 1,000 population. In County Laois, the ratio is, on average, one GP per 1,600 population.”
“I raise the problem people around the State have in accessing a GP or getting a GP to take them on. It is even more difficult for people who do not have a medical card. It is a huge problem. There is a shortage of locum doctors, which leads to problems for some GPs trying to take holidays or leave. The emergency departments of hospitals are clogged up with people who should be seen in a community care or primary care setting. Some go to emergency departments either because they cannot get a GP appointment or do not have a medical card and cannot afford a GP visit. A recent Economic and Social Research, ESRI, report outlined that we need between 943 and 1,211 to cope with demand. That is just to stand still, not to improve the ratio of GPs per head of population.”
“We must remember that while they are waiting, they have nowhere else to go. They can go to the community welfare officer, maybe, but there are very strong rules in that regard. It can be difficult and can take time. It is really important that we try to iron out any difficulties with this. The delivery part of the appeals process needs to be looked at.”
“If they could be done within a six-week period, that would certainly be very good. I welcome the fact that there is a target in that regard. In the absence of targets, nothing is achieved. Things move when there are targets. The Minister is correct about people supplying more information. Often, those who make claims are not sure what is being sought as a result of the language the Department uses. It has been simplified in recent years, and that is welcome. It is important that we try to achieve the target. As already stated, people find themselves out of work through no fault of their own because of a disability or they have to give up their jobs. The Minister and I often come across cases in our constituencies of people having to give up work to care for loved ones. It is really important that we try to support people financially.”
“I want to go back and check where those cases are at. If there is a particular case, I will bring it to his attention. The Minister read out a reply prepared by the Department. I am not saying that the officials are giving him false information, but the experience we have been having does not match what he read out.”
“The reason I raise this is because people find themselves out of work through no fault of their own because of a disability or they have to give up work to care for a loved one and may have to put in a claim for carer's allowance. These are genuine cases. I understand that it is complex. I understand that there are a number of different aspects in terms of judging whether people are eligible or not. The Oireachtas helpline is of assistance, but it is not a silver bullet. The experience we have had is that some applications take four and five months to process, which can cause serious problems. Even in straightforward cases, there may be a missing document that is then supplied. If there is an appeal, it can take up to 12 months. That is our experience. The Minister asked if I have an individual case.”
“My question relates to the delays around reviews of decisions relating to disability and carer's allowance. Currently, people are waiting a long time. This matter needs to be addressed. I hope the Department is going to take action on it.”
“He stated: "that the Central Bank does not approve, issue, sell or oversee the sale of Israeli bonds." The Governor of the Central Bank, Gabriel Makhlouf, has said different. He has contradicted what the Taoiseach said. He states the Central Bank could decline to approve the sale of Israeli bonds if "national restrictive measures" were put in place.”
“The slaughter in Gaza continues this week. We still see innocent men, women and children mowed down by tank fire and massive aerial bombardments while they queue for food, but also in camps where people are trying to shelter, who have been displaced for the one hundredth time in the past two years. There is a moral and political responsibility on us to do all we can to put pressure on the terrorist State of Israel. Last week, the Government refused to back a measure that would do just that, by refusing to back a proposal to block the Central Bank from approving the prospectus for the sale of Israeli bonds. The Minister for Finance claimed his hands are tied and that the Government could not intervene with the State bank's approval of bonds. The Taoiseach went further.”
“I acknowledge that the bus service in Portlaoise has been fantastic, but we need more rolled out. I ask the Minister of State to sort out the over-70s nonsense. He needs to sort it in the coming weeks and we are depending on him.”
“However, there is only one toilet in the station and sometimes it is not operational. There is one small weather shelter on the outbound platform. There could sometimes be 200 or 300 people standing there. If it rains, 90% of those on the platform are standing in the rain. That needs to change. There are simple things like that to address. We need simple shelters for people to stand under when they are waiting for a train. I welcome the local bus service in Portlaoise, which has been rolled out in recent months. It has proved a great success. It is fantastic. Some days I can come to Leinster House by walking 100 yd from my front door, getting on a bus to the railway station, getting the train to Dublin, walking out of the station and onto another bus, which drops me down the road.”
“Why can they not drive a minibus of kids to the local school in Shanahoe, Abbeyleix, Ballyroan or any other village or town around the country? We need to sort that and dramatically increase the number of drivers available. We need to keep cash payments. While I support the move to cashless and contactless payments, we should also retain the option of cash. That is important. Some of us prefer to use cash when at all possible. That is particularly the case for people who do not have bank cards or use phones for payments. The passenger experience has been mentioned already. There is no doubt that the public transport system has improved and I acknowledge it. Train services have improved. There is now a large number of trains in Portlaoise. There are trains on the hour and sometimes two per hour, which is a dramatic improvement.”
“The Taoiseach and Tánaiste agreed with me on the issue on the floor of the Dáil. The Minister for Transport, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, agreed me with, as far as I know. I think the Minister of State also agrees that we need to sort that out. We have eight weeks to do so. I have been raising this matter since the first day of Dáil sittings after the new Government was formed. It needs to be sorted out. The review is complete. How many times does it have to be shuffled around between civil servants, their advisers and everybody else? We need to sort it. Drivers should be allowed to work and drive school buses until they are 75 provided they pass a strict medical and eyesight test every year. They are driving private coaches with 52, 72 and 78 passengers.”
“On the school transport sector, the Climate Change Advisory Council report, published today, notes that of 773,000 primary and post-primary pupils, only 172,000, or 18%, have access to school transport. We can see the difference when schools are on holidays. In mornings and afternoons, the volume of traffic on the roads of all towns, villages and cities, such as Dublin, reduces dramatically. We must change that. One in five car journeys is for the purpose of getting children to school. We can see what needs to be done. We need to drastically improve and expand the school transport system but we cannot do so because we do not have the drivers. Bus operators throughout the country can tell the Minister of State that. We need to deal with the Bus Éireann ban on drivers over 70 years of age for its services and contracted services.”
“I welcome the eight proposals in the motion put forward by Deputy O'Gorman. They are very welcome and timely. The very important ones are to further reduce fares and to further accelerate the Connecting Ireland rural bus programme. The all-island rail strategy was mentioned. It is important, as we move towards the reunification of the national territory, that this is stepped up as a practical measure to connect North and South, particularly Donegal, Derry, Sligo, Fermanagh and the other counties of the north west. We have a lot of catching up to do given that the transport sector accounts for 43% of all energy used. The Climate Change Advisory Council set out again today that we must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030. We should be even more ambitious than that. There is huge ground to be made up there.”
“In Port Laoise, rents have shot up way beyond 2%, to multiples of that. The proof is in the actual rents being charged. We must bring in proper rent limits and increase the supply of cost-rental and affordable housing. We must also step up the tenant in situ scheme and invest in critical infrastructure such as water supply and electricity to ensure new homes can be brought onstream.”
“When a tenancy ends voluntarily due to a tenant buying a house, moving into a social house or going to another rented home, the landlord can charge what is called “market rent.” This means they can follow the already galloping rents that are there. What are students to do? They seem to have been forgotten. They are going to return in September. What are they facing come September and the September after that? The prices they are being charged are astronomical. We need to do something for students. While it is welcome that 55 municipal districts not covered by RPZs are to be brought into the loop, though the Minister forgot about that last week until he was reminded, even with existing RPZs, landlords have found ways around them. We can take any town in the county, for example, Port Laoise or Mountmellick and places like that.”
“They are trapped forever in private rented accommodation with no control over the rent they are charged. What is being provided is drip-feed affordable housing and even fewer cost-rentals. That needs to change. Workers and families are paying more than half their income in some cases to rack-renting landlords and we need to change that. What do we get? What did this Government do last week? It will force measures through this House that will drive already skyrocketing prices into the air. The Government shows no regard for struggling renters, or else it seems to miss the point. New apartments will not be covered by the 2% rent cap that is supposed to bring prices down. Is the Government kidding? A landlord with three or fewer homes can continue to charge what they like and continue with no-fault evictions.”
“This a very important, timely motion. As a group of TDs on the left, we were party to it. The situation is a housing emergency; everybody accepts that now, with 15,500 plus in homeless accommodation and huge waiting lists for social housing. County Laois, which has a fairly good record for social housing, still has a housing waiting list of 1,600 households. Low Government targets and projections are missed by a country mile. There is a huge need for investment in infrastructure and water in which we are falling way behind. Those who are above the income limit for social housing cannot get or buy an affordable house or get a cost-rental. This is really important. This is a group that is being left behind, a group of low-paid workers who are being caught and have no options.”
“One area that needs to be tackled by the Government at central level is how senior departmental officials - I am not too sure about how much Ministers see - are transferring moneys from their respective Departments straight to local authority staff, including senior management. Most of those people are good as well, but councillors do not have any say in how that is allocated, used or monitored. That is not a good thing to do. That is my take on it. The weakness in the system is that lack of accountability and fairness because of the means of the householder not being taken into consideration. I wish to see the Government move to take that into account in future years.”
“If we continue undermining local government in the way we have been doing over the past number of years, we are going to further erode peoples' trust in local government. It is the nearest form of government to the people. Generally, people know their local councillor. They can talk to their local councillor. Their local councillor has access to senior officials and us. The local councillor or a group of them can contact Ministers if they wish, which they regularly do. They have a right under the 2001 Act to make representations to statutory bodies, public bodies and semi-State bodies, such as the ESB, the HSE, etc. It has to be taken account for. We need to increase the role of councillors and local government instead of continuing to erode it.”
“However, the chamber of the local authority, which is the primary essence of local government, is being undermined. When one starts undermining local democracy, one starts undermining democracy overall. I have real concerns - I wish to say this sincerely to the Minister, and I said it to Phil Hogan in the Chamber in the first year I was here back in 2011 - about local government being undermined and people not seeing local government as valuable and relevant. They need to see what they are voting for be given that control. I can rattle off - I am sure other Deputies can as well - all of the different functions that have been taken away from councillors in the past 25 years.”
“Means must be factored into it. There is also a lack of transparency in how the tax is spent. I would like to see improvements in that regard. I would also like to see councillors being given a greater say. I have one further point to make to the Minister about local government funding. In the past five or six years, a great deal of money has gone directly to projects chosen by the management teams of councils. I want to flag this issue for the Minister. It is a real problem. I have asked local councillors about projects I have seen commence, but they say they had no notice of what was proposed and that the relevant matters did not come before them for decision. It could be the Department of arts and sport or any Department that is lobbing money straight down to local authorities.”
“Will those who feel the brunt of the extra increases in terms of the changes to the bands and rates also face an increase of 25% in October when it comes to the budget? That must also be factored in. In an ideal world, local authorities must be able to raise moneys. PAYE tax was increased dramatically - those who were working throughout the 1970s and 1980s will remember this – but the corresponding increase was for PAYE workers to take the hit when rates were abolished. Unfortunately, that destroyed the remit of local authorities and affected local democracy. In an ideal world, we would have sustainable funding at local level, while taking into account the needs of workers. The key point about the LPT, as it has been framed in the past 12 years, is that no account whatsoever has been taken of means. That is simply not good enough.”
“That could mean that somebody with a good income who is fairly well off and living in a house worth €1.25 million could do quite well out of the Bill in comparison with a family in a home worth €250,000, €300,000 or €400,000. I am not sure about the rationale behind that, but the way it is framed in the Bill, it looks like it will benefit the cohort of people who happen to be in houses worth up to €1.25 million and who also have very good incomes. The other area of concern is that while the Bill allows for variations of up to 25%, that is to increase, but it only allows for reductions of 15%. If we look at the lists for recent years, we can see that many local authorities including in Laois, increased their rates by 15%.”
“The exemptions for houses affected by defective concrete blocks in sections 4 and 5 are welcome. I also welcome the possibility of claiming a six-year exemption. The people who have been affected by that issue are facing enough difficulties. However, section 7 provides for a new charging methodology for the LPT. All valuation bands are to be widened by 20%, which looks okay on the face of it. However, the baseline for band 1 is being increased from €90 to €95, with the potential to increase by 25% on top of that. Band 2 is increasing from €225 to €235, again with the potential for that to be further increased. I read about another band with some interest. The basic rate is also set to be reduced from 0.1029% to 0.0906%, which will apply to properties valued up to €1.26 million.”
“People still have to fork out for services, such as refuse collection, that were privatised. More and more families are having to dig deep into their pockets to fund the running of schools. I refer to just the basics such as keeping the lights on, the heating going, and basic work required in the school. That is what is happening throughout the country. At the moment, a lot of schools have overdrafts. INTO representatives told me and others here last week that a substantial number of schools are running into the red. That is not sustainable in the long term, and it must be addressed in the budget. There was a very modest increase in the capitation grant last year but it is still way behind what it needs to be for primary schools. That must be addressed in the budget. I have concerns about the Bill.”
“LPT, as it was introduced in 2012 and 2013, takes no account whatsoever of the income of the property owner. Somebody could be living in a house worth €500,000, €600,000 or €700,000, but they might be on a single State pension. For example, a widow or widower could be living on a State pension and have very little disposable cash to use to pay the tax. In County Laois last year, it was projected that there could be a possibility of raising €11.6 million via LPT. However, the total amount realised was €3.1 million. Residents must be told more clearly what they get in return. That is a real issue. We must remember that in many cases, people who own their own houses have already paid stamp duty and are paying high mortgages. In some cases, the LPT turns out to be a tax on debt.”
“Not having control of finance completely impedes the role of councillors and what they are supposed to do in performing their functions. Taking away the rates base in 1977 completely undermined local democracy. There are a number of issues with the local property tax, including the fact that there is a lack of transparency as to how it is spent and allocated. Within local councils, the management take the lead in terms of how the money is divvied out. They tell councillors what they can and cannot do and why money must be put into this or that area. There is a certain amount of arm-twisting in terms of getting budgets through. In reality, councillors have very little say in the matter. The other big problem with the LPT is the means of property owners.”
“I will comment in due course on the Finance (Local Property Tax and Other Provisions) (Amendment) Bill 2025. The Bill is obviously being brought forward to raise more money. I wish to raise a couple of points to provide context. The abolition of rates by Fianna Fáil in 1977 completely removed a sustainable source of funding for local government. While the election that year was won on the back of this move - in fact it was a landslide victory - not long after, the incoming Government increased taxes. I remember at the time watching my pay packet evaporate. The shortfall was made up by heaping more tax on top of workers. That was not the way to go. While there was a short-term benefit for the then Government in getting into power, having power and control over taxation, it leaned harder on ordinary workers.”
“Let the Bill go through, amend it on Committee Stage and get on with getting the legislation in place. We should give this priority. The promissory note was passed here one night when we sat until, I recall, 5 o'clock in the morning to bail out the banks. Bailing out the banks might have been important, but this is more important in terms of sorting out people's lives and helping them.”
“Councillor Caroline Dwane Stanley has raised this issue consistently at county council level. We need to get this moving. In the case of Laois, a site has been selected and, as far as I know, the money has been approved. We need to get things moving. Heads need to be knocked together. We cannot have victims of abuse being shipped off with their young children, in many cases 60, 70 or 80 miles away from everything. It makes life worse for them. Not having anywhere to go stops people from leaving abusive situations. Sometimes people go back to a situation. I saw that happen with somebody in my extended family, a second cousin, who kept returning and we could not understand why. I understand now because it was the 1970s and there was nowhere for the person to go. It is now 2025 and we still do not have refuges. We need to fix that.”
“They are away from their GP and family support. We cannot continue doing this. We have to be able to do things more quickly. We have to go through a lot of jigs and reels to get anything moving. It is like moving a glacier and is the one thing that is frustrating in this country. I realise we have to do things right and I am not talking about doing things in a slapdash manner, but it takes significant time to move things. It is like rolling a huge stone up the top of the hill and, every time you are nearly at the top, the stone pushes you halfway back down and you have to start all over again. Those centres need to be in place. I ask the Minister of State to bring this matter back to Government. The Cabinet needs to fast-track refuge provision. I have spoken to the county council about a refuge.”
“On gender-based and domestic violence, the Minister of State mentioned that one of the key priorities of the Government is guaranteeing safe refuge and accommodation in every region in the country. He referred to zero tolerance. I agree with him. I do not think anybody would disagree with him. I live in a county where there is no refuge. I did not have as many grey hairs on my head when I first started talking about this issue. I have lost count of the number of Ministers I have raised this with. We need refuges in the nine counties that do not have them. In my county, Laois, people who are victims of domestic violence and their children have to be shipped off 60, 70 or 80 miles to Longford, Limerick or somewhere, in many cases, which is scandalous. They are away from their families and children are away from school.”
“What is wrong with letting it go to Committee Stage, where it can be amended, and trusting the House to fix it, along with the parliamentary legal team, the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers? What is to stop us from doing that? This is an excuse to bat this back. The Government needs to be more open. The Government often asks the Opposition for our solutions. Here is a solution being put forward to right a wrong, as was said earlier. The Government should be more open. We need to get away from the belief that, because something is not a Government Bill, the Government will not support it. Sometimes the Government brings forward stuff that is positive and the Opposition supports it. It needs to work both ways. I hope we can have a speedy passage of legislation to deal with this.”
“The previous Minister, the Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee, promised, as I recall, to right this wrong. That has not happened. A lot of progress has been made. Legislation has been passed to give protection to victims. As I said, victims are predominantly women. For example, Coco's Law contains serious penalties, and rightly so, for anybody who thinks of sharing what could be classed as intimate images. It is mainly men who do it, but women may also do it. That law is important and I welcome that we now have it in place. As I said, the previous Minister said she would address this. It is in the programme for Government. The Minister of State has said the Government wants to delay the Bill for a year.”
“The importance of the privacy of counselling for recovery and saving lives cannot be overstated. Anything else will deter victims. The Minister of State said the Office of the Attorney General pointed out there is a constitutional right to a trial in due course of law and there is a duty on the prosecution to ensure the appropriate disclosures take place. This is not an appropriate disclosure. I would like to see that tested in court. I do not think any sane person could argue in favour of that. I would like to see somebody put forward the argument that this is an appropriate disclosure. What is appropriate about disclosing counselling notes? These are the victim's notes and the trial is about the perpetrator being on trial, not about the victim being on trial. I would like that tested in a court of law.”
“The thought of the counselling notes being read out in court is shocking. It is absolutely terrible. We cannot have counselling without confidentiality. That is the only way it can happen. We are retraumatising victims through the disclosure of counselling notes during the trial process. Counselling has to be a safe space, but once notes are disclosed, that is compromised. People will either not go to counselling or will not disclose everything. That is a fact. I certainly would not. If I were a victim, I would not go near counselling if I thought my counselling notes would be used in court. It is absolutely shocking. The disclosure of counselling notes or records completely undermines the whole basis of the process and can only be used to browbeat victims in court. I see defence in court doing that.”
“A lot of that has happened within marriage, partnerships and what is termed the family home. When this was first discussed in recent years, in my innocence as a layperson I could not believe counselling notes would be dragged up in court and a person humiliated and traumatised. It is shocking. I could not understand and fathom it. I have been contacted by women and a couple of men who have asked me to support the Bill. Some have told me their stories, which are shocking. One young man, who I will call Damien, is an alleged victim of serious sexual abuse as a child. He went for counselling, which helped him. In many cases, counselling prevents people from engaging in self-harm or ending their lives. The case involving him and others will come to court in the next year or two.”
“We know of other cases of missing persons, such as JoJo Dullard. Numerous people over the years have been raped and murdered. We need to start getting to grips with it as a society. As the previous speaker said, this is about righting a wrong. These people, mainly women, go through a trauma and then they go through a trial. Victims have told me how difficult that was for them, with the adversarial nature of it. The courtroom is a very adversarial place. Some Members of the House are lawyers. I am not but I have witnessed some court cases. It is a very adversarial place to be and can be very difficult, particularly around sensitive issues like this, with abuse or rape. There were victims of abuse in institutions, including a lot of young men. We have had the awful rape of and violence against women.”
“I welcome our guests in the Gallery. I know that some of them have spoken out publicly about this. Sometimes, that is not very easy to do. I welcome the fact that they are here. Hopefully, with their support and that of others we can get legislation in place. I hope it is this Bill. I hope we do not have to wait for 12 months or two years or any longer, because this is overdue. I thank Deputy Coppinger for bringing forward the Criminal Law (Prohibition of the Disclosure of Counselling Records) Bill 2025. The Bill is very welcome and way overdue because of the sheer number of serious cases of rape and murder that are being prosecuted through the courts. We have had the Satchwell case in recent weeks. Today we have new steps being taken with the investigation into the case of Annie McCarrick.”
“We are all to blame for that but primarily the Government is to blame because it is a Government Bill. I would like to see it progressed. I understand that the officials have drafted the Bill but we have not seen it in the House. We need to do this urgently.”
“HIQA does the report but it is filtered through the chief inspector despite the fact that there is supposed to be separation. Why does the chief inspector have to approve all of these reports? The problem is that this rests on one person. One person's determination or judgment will decide what will or will not happen. HIQA cannot issue the report without that approval. When will unannounced inspections be carried out? They must be thorough and strict inspections. When will there be effective sanctions? What about deregistration and financial penalties? Are there financial penalties? I do not know. Perhaps the Minister of State can tell me whether there are penalties in law. When will this important legislation - the 2017 Bill on safeguarding the elderly - be enacted? It has been sitting there for eight years.”
“I thank the Minister of State. I would like an explanation for a whistleblower having, after two years of inaction on the part of the chief inspector and HIQA, to go to the media to highlight all of this. Surely that is a scandalous situation. They say you judge a society by how it treats its weakest. The weakest are the elderly and the very young - infant children. The Minister of State said the chief inspector will carry out a review. The chief inspector has failed in relation to three nursing homes, and possibly many more. My understanding is the chief inspector's position, legally, is supposed to be separate from the inspections carried out by HIQA operatives, yet HIQA staff must have their reports approved by the chief inspector.”
“These smaller homes are being held to the standards. Abbeyleix public nursing home was almost closed 13 years ago because of HIQA demands, but a large public campaign that and others were involved in stopped it from happening. Thank God we kept it there. Why does it appear there is a more lackadaisical approach to the larger multiples such as that which we saw last week on the television? Have they got more clout? I do not know.”
“I have lost all confidence in its ability to monitor care in nursing homes and enforce regulations and rules. Will we have a Garda investigation into some of the criminal activity we saw? Has HIQA issued financial penalties? Has it deregistered any of the nursing homes owned by these large companies. I understand that the one in this case owns 27 homes. I met representatives from the Irish nursing home alliance today. They outlined that 77 small independent nursing homes have closed in the past five years. Most of this happened due to strict demands. HIQA holds such homes to the letter of the law in order to make sure they are closed. Ballard Lodge in Portlaoise, which was providing excellent care - I never heard a complaint against it - closed recently. That is one of the most recent casualties of HIQA standards.”
“A plan was agreed and corrective measures were to be taken, but these were not implemented. The protected disclosure was about a third nursing home. It was not about those two nursing homes at all. The person making the protected disclosure had to go to RTÉ because nothing was done for two years. The shortage of staff was not addressed. The abuse and neglect continued despite families bringing it to the attention of management and being assured that improvement plans would be put in place and it would be addressed. This did not happen. Worst of all, the nursing home continued taking admissions despite being banned by HIQA. Where are the sanctions? There are none. HIQA has failed miserably. I had faith in HIQA up to about ten days ago. I have no faith in it now.”
“A former carer in Portlaoise nursing home has informed us that the RTÉ programme only touched the surface. She described at length what she saw during her time working in the nursing home over a number of years and outlined the appalling practices there. There are some shocking examples, and these occurred before anything came out on RTÉ. An elderly mother was looking to have her incontinence pad changed and, despite repeated requests, it did not happen. Her family eventually took her out of there. A man with Alzheimer's from another town in the county was recognised by a former neighbour walking around the town - he did not even know where he was - and contacted one of his family members. They got him back to the nursing home. He was wandering around and nobody had missed him.”
“This matter relates to nursing homes and the lack of enforcement of standards. Last week, we witnessed shocking scenes in the Residence nursing home in Portlaoise and the Beneavin nursing home in Dublin. I am sure the Minister of State is aware that there are other cases as well. We saw was: a shocking level of neglect; abusive behaviour; residents told to soil on incontinence pads; elderly, vulnerable residents left lying in urine for hours at night, calling for help but getting none; rough handling; shortages of sanitary goods and other basic items; and no assistance with eating, which is a major issue. There are 15 or 20 minutes allocated to getting people fed. Some of these people cannot feed themselves, so the food is not eaten. Then it is taken away as if they are not hungry that day, when they might be very hungry.”