I return to the issue of nursing homes and last night's edition of "Prime Time", which showed half of residents, 24 of them, dying in a very short period, the nursing home failing to put in protections in the context of disease control and the staff and residents contacting State agencies but not getting responses. Emails were going back and forth but actions were not being taken. These were mothers, fathers and grandparents and the State agencies did not work in a timely manner to save their lives. Many feel that if this happened to any other group in Irish society, there would have been an outcry from the Government. We have had nebulous statements from the Taoiseach regarding an inquiry but no details about when or the terms of reference. Will he nail down when this will happen, what the terms of reference will be and ensure these families get truth and justice?

Everybody agrees that the pandemic bore down hardest on people living in nursing homes. Unfortunately, we lost a great number of people in nursing homes as a result of Covid.

I suppose what was so disappointing about what was outlined last night is that was during the third wave of Covid, we had the vaccine in place, we had routine testing every two weeks and we had put in place infection prevention and control measures. I have met those families from Ballynoe and I know how distressed and upset they are, but it was a very difficult situation. At that time, all over Ireland we had unprecedented numbers. I remember at the time we had more than 300 nursing homes with a Covid outbreak. We had outbreaks across all our acute hospitals and we simply did not have enough staff.

Seventy thousand people signed up to Be on Call for Ireland.

The Minister of State, without interruption.

I look forward to the fact that we will have a review of what happened during Covid. One of the measures we put in play - it was the former Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, who put it in play - was the expert panel report on nursing homes and there were short-, medium- and long-term recommendations in that. We are following to the letter in regard to Covid response teams on the ground.

There was a very significant amount of additional capacity provided. Some €149 million was available for Covid outbreak assistance. We are still providing free personal protective equipment, PPE, to every nursing home in Ireland. It has cost the State €79 million to date. The State reacted, and reacted quickly.