700 care home abuse claims go to gardaí

A Government TD has sent a file of some 700 allegations of mistreatment and bad practices at nursing and care homes to An Garda Síochána.

Louth Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd received the complaints following a number of Freedom of Information requests to the Health Information and Quality Authority.

Mr O’Dowd said he passed the information onto the gardaí, as Hiqa does not have the power to investigate individual complaints, a shortcoming he says he hopes to address by introducing an amendment to the relevant Act in the Dáil this week.