Comments from Taoiseach Simon Harris and Minister Roderic O'Gorman in last week's leaders' debate were insulting to the families who suffered bereavements during the Covid pandemic, according to a care advocate.
During the debate, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald mentioned her meetings with Care Champions, a family-run advocacy group for all people who need care support in the community.
The group also campaigns for residents and their families in care homes, and they are pushing for a statutory inquiry into the handling of the Covid pandemic, while the Government has insisted it will be a non-statutory inquiry.
Mr Harris said he had met a member of the group while campaigning. However, Majella Beattie from Care Champions told BreakingNews.ie that their regular requests for meetings with the Taoiseach have gone unanswered.
Ms Beattie said: "The Government is running away from it, the cheek of Simon Harris in response to that question when he said 'I met someone from Care Champions'. He met one family member on the canvass trail, he has consistently refused to meet with us. Why are they running away? We are a pleasant group, we just want dignity for our loved ones' memory."
'Political games'
She said the families represented by Care Champions have no interest in being involved in "political games".
"This inquiry will happen, because like the Stardust families and other groups down the years, we'll continue to campaign and some day a Taoiseach will stand up in the Dáil and apologise to families for denying them access to the truth, denying our loved ones their right to their story being told.
"Families have to be central to the inquiry. Mary Lou McDonald has met with us and spent a lot of time with our families, Peader Tóibín has met with us, People Before Profit has met with us, and I'm impressed to see that Sinn Féin has our five key asks in their health manifesto."
At the debate, host Katie Hannon asked the 10 party leaders if they favoured a statutory Covid inquiry.
The main difference from a non-statutory inquiry is that statutory inquiries benefit from legal power, which gives the chair the powers to require the production of evidence and the attendance of witnesses.
The three leaders from the government coalition, Mr Harris, Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Mr O'Gorman, all reiterated they favoured the evaluation process which has been put forward.
Ms Beattie criticised Mr O'Gorman for using the term "witch hunt", which she said has been repeated by many politicians and is "offensive to bereaved families".
"Roderic O'Gorman repeated the other night the term 'witch hunt'. It's such an offensive comment to people who have been bereaved. All families want to know is what happened to their loved ones. Private facilities, in particular, do not fall under the Freedom of Information Act, so they can't even get records.
"These questions are ripping families apart since they lost their loved ones. These aren't just numbers, just old people... they're people who made our communities, and they deserve the end of their story told in its truth.
"We're not looking to point fingers, we want to sit down and look at the decisions and the policies that were made, why they were made, see where they want wrong, acknowledge the failures and put in place procedures and a fit for purpose complaint system.
"We believe the enquiry should be human-rights led.
"Our message to Micheál Martin and Simon Harris is: We're not playing your political games, it's offensive and insulting to use words like 'witch hunt', and just repeating how well we did. When we visit the graveyard, we don't think about that, we're going because our loved ones are there and many of them died prematurely and alone. It doesn't matter if it was six weeks, a month, or a year, before their natural time, it doesn't matter, they had a horrific time before their deaths."
Care Champions has supported over 10,000 families in total, after the group was formed just before the Covid pandemic.
"Our families were initially raising issues that some nursing homes were denying window visits from the outset, they weren't able to find out how their loved ones were.
"Other families were seeing, often through the window, that their loved ones were losing weight, looking unwell, not managing well. When the initial tragedies occurred at places like Delgin House [Co Louth] and St Mary's [Co Dublin], we were raising concerns very quickly.
"The bereaved families were often the ones who had been advocating from the outset. We were highlighting to government 'this isn't working, the toll of prolonged isolation is having a hugely negative impact on our loved ones'.
"At that point, they had removed all essential services so our loved ones were not getting physiotherapy, basic treatments for their mobility...a lack of speech and language therapy can lead to deterioration in swallowing food.
"Families were finding that they weren't being heard. People were dying and often our loved ones weren't informed they had Covid, or people had been told there was no Covid in the homes and their loved ones were fine.
"Our loved ones were dying in challenging circumstances with families in the dark. Then, when families were advocating for loved ones to be taken to hospital, they were often told 'we're not allowed to transfer them, hospitals won't take them', so people without Covid were denied medical treatment."
The group formed a committee and made submissions to various agencies, including the health committee and Nphet.
Ms Beattie said they quickly discovered there was no complaint system for nursing homes, especially those in the private sector.
People don't leave their human rights at the door of a nursing home or a hospital.
"We've got families who are constantly wondering, 'did they know they were loved? Did they know we hadn't abandoned them? Were they in pain?'
"We know that in many nursing homes, staff were down to maybe one nurse and one care assistant for a home, and the consequence of that had to be that 90 per cent of the residents who were sick didn't receive the appropriate care. These questions are haunting families.
"We've had three taoiseachs since 2020, none of them have agreed to meet with us despite consistent requests. As families, we want change, and we don't want our experience to happen to another family, the policies that failed us continue to fail people.
"We see nursing homes closing around the country presently, older people's voices are still not being heard. People don't leave their human rights at the door of a nursing home or a hospital."
Ms Beattie said her group's two main requests are a care partner system like the one in place in Northern Ireland, and a "human rights-led, statutory Covid inquiry".
A care partner is a defined practical role to provide additional support to people in care homes, and it allows "for individualised support tailored to meet the needs of the patient", according to the NHS.
The Government has said the Covid inquiry could resemble the Scally report, which looked into the CervicalCheck scandal.
However, Ms Beattie said families believe only a statutory inquiry can address the handling of the pandemic.
"The decision-makers should not have a choice about whether to attend an inquiry and give the information that we all need. We are all getting older, and we will likely face another pandemic at some point.
"We want to tell our stories, but we want our records so it can be done properly.
"There is generational harm caused by this, all the way down to grandchildren. We had to make our own memory wall.
"Our loved ones are frozen in time. There have been illnesses that some families believe were down to stress, others haven't been able to go back to work, there have even been marriage breakups, it has caused such devastation and pain. People are blaming themselves, 'why didn't I know Covid was there? Why didn't I force myself in?' Obviously they couldn't, but they're taking on this guilt.
"When you have the truth you can deal with it, but not having the full story is torture.
"Until the Government acknowledge it, it's such a slap in the face. Every time we reach out to government, we want to come to the table. We want reform, a care partner system, a complaints system, in their memory."
Ms Beattie said Care Champions has also supported 200 staff members from nursing homes, hospitals and care homes. She said their voices should also be heard in a Covid inquiry.
