The Leas Cross report is a catalogue of mistreatment, humiliation, and abuse of the elderly, Opposition parties said today.
Fine Gael's health spokesman Fergus O'Dowd accused the Government of to deliver on the promises for a new inspectorate and national standards. He said the HSE was in denial about its own failures and that, as a result, its statements on nursing home care lacked all credibility.
"It has not accepted responsibility. It has not shown itself to be accountable and until it does that, its statements on the issue of nursing homes lack all credibility."
Labour's deputy leader and health spokeswoman Liz McManus, described the report as a "damning assessment of the systematic failure" of the Government, health boards and professional authorities to protect elderly residents.
"Such has been the wait that the public has become suspicious that little was going to come from the investigation and that no lessons would be learned from the expose of the catalogue of terrible conditions these unfortunate elderly people had to endure," she said.
The party has called for legislation to be enacted around the report's main recommendations. "The failure to protect elderly people in law is explicitly highlighted in the report. In this regard the Government must immediately legislate for its main recommendations."
Ms McManus criticised the Minister for Health, Mary Harney, for an over-reliance on the private sector to provide healthcare.
"In regard to care for the elderly she hasn't provided safeguards, yet continues to promote privatisation of services. Given this ideological commitment to private medicine, this legislation must cover all public and private facilities," she said.
The Green Party laid the blame for the Leas Cross failures at the door of Ms Harney and her predecessor Micheál Martin
"[They] cannot wash their hands of this. All of this has happened on their watch and they have to carry the can," the party's health spokesman John Gormley said.
"Minister Harney has announced her regret and proclaimed to be shocked by the Professor O'Neill's findings, but more shocking is her continued inability to put in place safeguards to prevent such despicable and inhumane treatment of the most vulnerable members of society."
Fianna Fáil candidate for Dublin South East Jim O'Callaghan called on Ms Harney to support the establishment of not-for-profit nursing homes, which would be managed and governed by community-based boards of trustees. "Not-for-profit nursing homes are a huge success in the United States and Canada and there is no reason why they couldn't work in Ireland," he said.
Achieving uniform standards of care in nursing homes is a top priority for the Irish Nursing Homes Organisation (INHO), which reiterated its support to adopting such a code for both private and public homes. The group has already moved ahead with the formulation of appropriate standards of care and published detailed guidelines.
People with Disabilities in Ireland (PwDI), said the Leas Cross nursing home scandal was at risk of repeating itself unless national standards for ongoing monitoring and inspection of services are implemented.
"Measurable national standards are essential because they would deliver accountability, quality and consistency throughout the country," said PwDI chief executive, Michael Ringrose.
The Irish Society of Physicians in Geriatric Medicine (ISPGM) has called for night-time inspections of both public and private nursing homes.
ISPGM chairman Sean O'Keefe said he was shocked but not surprised at the appalling conditions that were revealed imn the nursing home. "We've known for a long time that there were problems within this sector," he said.
