FAMILIES FROM ACROSS the country gathered outside the Dáil today to protest the lack of adult safeguarding legislation and the current “crisis” in Ireland’s care sector. 

The protest comes after an RTÉ Investigates programme went undercover in two nursing homes operated by the chain company Emeis Ireland, and revealed substantial failings in care provided to residents there. 

The programme showed staff leaving residents in inappropriate incontinence wear, elderly residents in pain waiting to be taken to the toilet, and an employee making fake activities entries on the computer system for residents, to make it appear as though they had enjoyed walks, reading, and entertainment. It also showed the homes being consistently understaffed. 

One man was also told to pee in his incontinence pad overnight after requesting repeatedly to be taken to the toilet.

Julieanne and Marie took part in the protest today as they have ongoing concerns about the care their dad is receiving in Beneavin Nursing home. 

Marie said that when their dad was admitted to the nursing home in February they believed he would be safe. 

“We can’t trust that anymore. We both work full time but we’re going in as often as we can during the day to make sure he’s been fed, because we just don’t know. We were promised that our dad would have a one to one carer and he would be brought out for walks two to three times a day. We were promised that there would be daily activities to keep him busy and help him settle; neither of those things happened,” she added. 

Julieanne said that their family now wants to see the HSE take control of the nursing home and the introduction of public nurses there. 

“He and the other residents are settled, they shouldn’t be moved, the HSE needs to step in,” she said. 

The sisters said that it was traumatic to see their father’s room featured in the RTÉ programme, and that the nursing home only informed them that there would be a report in the media in its advanced apology.

Majella with fellow organisers from Care Champions at the protest today.

Majella Beattie, the Chair of Care Champions Ireland, the group that organised the protest, said that families were “appalled” to hear the Taoiseach and the Minister for Older People “feign shock” at the revelations in the RTÉ programme. 

“We have been raising these concerns for five years. We have stalled adult safeguarding legislation, we’re waiting on changes to come from a commission on care for older people that could take years to come into effect,” she said. 

Multiple family members travelled up from Cork to protest the care that their relatives received in hospitals there. 

Allison McCarthy, from Cork, said that her mother called 999 from her hospital bed in the days before her death. 

“We were told that the hospital had no record of the call, but gardaí enabled me to listen to it afterwards, and her last words were: “I’m 78, don’t forget about me”. 

“She went in for COPD and was moved through six wards in four weeks. We were told that she died peacefully in the night with staff there, but an Ombudsman report later confirmed that she died alone. Her cause of death was not clearly recorded,” she said. 

Allison said that her mother was also called by the wrong name multiple times, including to her over the phone, by staff during her time in hospital. 

“We have real concerns about the care she received there as it was during Covid, and we had limited access in terms of seeing her, we don’t feel she was looked after properly,” she said. 

Another woman from Cork whose father passed away in 2022 after being transferred from hospital to a step down nursing home, as part of a palliative care plan, said that she too was protesting over the standard of care her father received. 

“He was meant to be there temporarily and then to come home to us to die. His death was inevitable, but his end of life journey was so traumatic that we will never forget it,” she said. 

The woman said that the nursing home missed a Covid diagnosis, which was picked up on after the family insisted that a test be done. 

“He was not fed according to the schedule, when he had Covid for a period of 2-3 days he was barely attended to, he was in such a bad way he had to go back to the hospital,” she said. 

At the hospital he developed a necrotising fasciitis infection, which the woman said made the last five weeks of his life “hellish”. 

“I see the issue with this step down programme now when my mother is in hospital, elderly people are lining up to be told where it is they’ll go. Recently one man stopped me and he had a sheet in his hand and asked, ‘Do you know where this home is, because I’m being sent there, and I don’t know where it is’. It’s no way to treat people who may no longer have much family support, and who may be at the end of their life,” she said. 

Camille Loftus from AgeAction.

Camille Loftus, the head of advocacy for AgeAction, said that HIQA needs to be able to carry out enforcement action against homes that are not complying with standards. 

age we are, and to see how openly that was flaunted, and how toothless HIQA is 

“HIQA have said there are 36 homes across the country they are consistently investigating because of a failure to comply, that is highly worrying,” she said. 

“We have seen a move towards the privatisation of care settings that is just not compatible with Slaintecare. A 100 bed facility is not a nursing home, it’s an institution, and that is not where older people want to be,” she said.