Government's Covid-19 review falls short, leaving Dealgan House families without answers, says Dundalk TD

The establishment of the government’s review of the Covid 19 pandemic, announced yesterday, “will not give Dealgan House families the answers they have been searching for,” a Dundalk TD has said.

In response to the government’s decision to set up an ‘evaluation’ of the State’s handling of the pandemic, Sinn Féin’s Ruairí Ó Murchú said it ‘falls far short of what Dealgan families, and others, have been led to expect’.

He said: “In the final days of this government, it is announced that instead of a proper inquiry into what happened during the Covid 19 pandemic, which would be able to compel witnesses and documents, we are told that an ‘independent evaluation’ would take place.”

“That is not going to cut the mustard with many of the families of the 22 people who died in terrible circumstances in Dealgan House nursing home in Dundalk in April and May 2020.

“For more than four years, I have walked alongside these families as they showed great courage and tenacity, often in the face of State obfuscation, to try themselves to get to the truth of how and why their loved ones died.

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“It is really disappointing to hear of an evaluation, when it should have been a proper inquiry. Where will the truth be found if witnesses, particularly those who are now private citizens, cannot be compelled to testify?

“Where will the lessons, that need to be learned, be found? Where will the forum be for families to tell the truth about their loved ones’ final days?

“At the Sinn Féin Ard Fhéis in September, my motion, that called for an independent inquiry into Dealgan House nursing home, along with the enactment of adult safeguarding and care partnership legislation, was passed.

“The government has ignored the strong calls for an inquiry and have dragged their heels on the safeguarding and care partnership work.”