Healthcare consultant Martin Hynes said today the problems in the Leas Cross Nursing Home were known about almost a year before the Prime Timeinvestigation.
Speaking on RTE Radio today Mr Hynes said he had carried out an independent investigation in 2004 showing major shortcomings identified during visits to Leas Cross.
"I went there with one of the inspection team and as I walked down the corridor I saw a number of old ladies sitting in Buxton chairs that were tilted backwards.
"They were looking up at the ceiling and their teeth weren't cleaned, their hair wasn't combed . . . . There was a tall man walking along the corridor with an incontinence pad on his under parts and nothing else so there was no dignity for anyone."
Mr Hynes said that the Health Authority had denied there were any problems with Leas Cross. "When I first came in to look at a particular issue in 2003 I was told there had been no complaints about Leas Cross, I was told that by St Michael's House and by the Northern Area Health Board.
"Yet when I was asked back again by the RHA to go back in and have a look at it I found there were substantial complaints there."
He is adamant that the situation was not simply a systems failure. "I don't believe in systems failures. There wasn't a systems failure. It is quite clear to me that people knew about it people put the system in place or failed to put the system in place so I don't accept this idea that there are systems failures.
"People fail. People fail to put systems in place, people fail to deal with things, people look away rather than look deeper at problems. That's the problem."
Mr Hynes also expressed concern that the "robust reporting" promised by the Northern Area Health Board continued to fall short. The inspection teams are largely unchanged since the Prime Time programme and the reports that have appeared online frequently fail to address the subject of patient care.
"I am convinced and satisfied that an environmental health officer is not able to say that patient care is satisfactory that patients are getting satisfactory care and treatment so he cannot say in fairness to him that that is happening."