Health board chiefs were not responsible for maltreatment of patients at Leas Cross nursing home, the Taoiseach told the Dail this evening.
Betie Ahern:
A report commissioned by the Health Service Executive, published last Friday, detailed a catalogue of deficient care culminating in a finding of institutional abuse.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny raised the issue during Leaders' Questions and demanded to know if Government ministers knew of the scandal.
Mr Kenny said: "Old people were maltreated; they were neglected and they died.
"Four ministers in your Government — can you answer the question did they have any knowledge of this or did they not?
"And do you have any idea if anybody is going to accept any responsibility or any accountability for the fact that 105 people died in Leas Cross?"
The report, by consultant gerontologist Professor Des O'Neill was heavily critical of the owners of the north Dublin nursing home — which was shut down last August — as well as the Northern Area Health Board and the Government.
The Taoiseach replied to Mr Kenny: "For me to stand up and and be critical of the people involved who are now trying to rectify these issues would be totally unfounded.
"If Deputy Kenny is asking me — as he almost implies — that people were just totally negligent, that they didn't care, it wasn't a concern to them or that they were incompetent — I don't believe that.
"I don't believe that the senior people in the then health board were responsible for that."