TÁNAISTE SIMON HARRIS has said that the treatment of residents at nursing homes highlighted by a RTÉ documentary should be investigated by gardaí.

Harris said the State is too reliant on the private market for nursing home care and said that “far too many” people in Ireland go into nursing homes “far too early”.

Emeis Ireland, formerly known as Orpea, operates 27 nursing homes across Ireland. A recent RTÉ Investigates programme investigated poor treatment and practices at two of the homes operating in the chain.

The investigation documented staff at the nursing homes leaving residents dressed in inappropriate incontinence wear, leaving them unchanged for hours at a time, and being discovered in wet clothing after they had wet themselves.

The programme also showed a man with dementia being “roughly handled” by staff.

Speaking in the Dáil today during Leaders’ Questions, Labour TD Marie Sherlock said that there are “huge questions for Government” over how to care for older people in Ireland.

She said there are no minimum staffing levels for nursing homes and asked Harris whether he is “comfortable” with the nursing home sector “becoming dominated by big business”.

Responding, Harris said: “The short answer is, I believe the State is too reliant on the private market when it comes to nursing home provision. That’s why we established a commission of care because I do think we need to look at the entire model of how we care for older people in this country.”

He said that he accepts that people “work in very demanding environments” but that he also believes “what stems from what we’ve seen on our television screens in recent days are real questions of personal accountability”.

Harris told the Dáil: “There are laws in our land today.

“There are laws in relation to assault, there are laws in relation to how we conduct ourselves, and I would urge that a referral is made to An Garda Síochána in relation to the footage that we saw.

“Because what I saw with my own two eyes, the haunting scenes of people being, in my view, physically assaulted in their home, is something that – the government has responsibilities here to do things, absolutely, but so to do people who carry out those actions.”

Harris also said the care facilities regulator, the Health and Information Quality Authority (Hiqa), has questions to answer as there were “serious shortcomings”.

“There is no law, there is no ideology, or there is no model of care that can excuse away – either in its existence or its absence – the conduct of people who decided to physically manhandle elderly people with dementia, and I want them held accountable, and I want the gardaí to look at the matter.”

The Public Accounts Committee has unanimously decided to call senior representatives from Hiqa, the HSE and the Department of Health after the documentary.

PAC chairman John Brady said: “The revelations uncovered in this investigative report have understandably caused widespread outrage and deep public concern.

“They raise fundamental and troubling questions about the oversight, governance and accountability mechanisms in place within the residential care sector.”

Contains additional reporting by Press Association