Louth TD calls for full public inquiry into deaths of 22 people at Dealgan House

The government must deliver a full public inquiry into the deaths of 22 people at Dealgan House Nursing Home in Dundalk "without further delay", Louth TD Ruairí Ó Murchú has said as the third anniversary of the shocking tragedy approaches.

The Sinn Féin deputy said the Easter weekend of April 11 and 12 2020, "when it became known at the highest levels of government and the HSE that a huge tragedy was unfolding in Dealgan continues to resonate with families who lost loved ones and the wider community in Dundalk".

He said: "As we approach the third anniversary of these terrible deaths, I call again on the government to make good their promises, made nearly three years ago, to provide answers to the families of those who died in Dealgan House.

"I have raised the need for a human rights-based public inquiry into Dealgan House with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar a number of times since he made the announcement in January that the government was looking at reviewing the State’s response to the Covid 19 pandemic."

Deputy Ó Murchú continued, "I, and other TDs in Louth, have asked time and time again for Dealgan to be specifically included in any inquiry or review because of the scale of the tragedy that unfolded and the fact that it remains the only private nursing home in the State where operational control was taken over by a hospital group.

"I am in awe of the work that the families of those who died in Dealgan have done, through the grief of losing their loved ones, to try to find the answers to their questions using Freedom of Information requests.

"They continue to this very day, asking the questions, sifting through the responses. But they continue to rightly demand a mechanism to get all the answers to their questions as to how their loved ones died and why."

He added, "It is three years on from the scandal of what happened in Dealgan and the government cannot obfuscate any longer over the inquiry they have promised. They need to get the terms of reference, in consultation with the families, published and the inquiry needs to get underway this year.

"We cannot be recalling the fourth anniversary looking for the same thing."