A report by the consultants Forvis Mazars has recommended that the health watchdog, Hiqa, should have greater powers when it comes to nursing homes. This particular report was carried out after residents at two nursing homes run by Emeis Ireland were found to have been left without basic care.

However, as Niamh Griffin highlighted on Thursday, due to legal proceedings, these two homes did not appear in a list of Hiqa reports into 24 homes run by that organisation — and seven of those had had restrictions placed on them by the watchdog. The reports, released this week, included several referrals of incidents to gardaí as well as other health and safety agencies.

The restrictions on some of the 24 inspected homes included preventing new admissions until issues were addressed, which seems counterintuitive depending on the nature of the problems identified. Do staff shortages alleviate for the current residents if they already exist?

The powers recommended include, for instance, the ability to levy worthwhile fines on providers who are not meeting standards, and particularly those who do not act quickly enough on Hiqa warnings.

That such authority has hitherto been absent from the watchdog’s remit shows how, at times, the agencies of the State are behind the times. We all surely remember the mistreatment of some residents at Áras Attracta. That came to light 12 years ago. Sufficient time has passed, and sufficient reports have been produced into that and other care facilities of different types, that State agencies should have such powers as a rule, not as a response.

Hiqa regularly visits units where, for example, children in care live. Indeed, it regularly produces reports that find sometimes serious deficiencies in such units, though that is not to say that everywhere has such problems, or that they are not acted upon with urgency.

The nursing home sector — itself increasingly consolidated and sometimes owned by companies based abroad — is important. The Mazars report found that the parent companies of nursing home groups “cannot be held to account by the [Hiqa] chief inspector under current legal arrangements”, an oversight that should be acted on with immediate urgency. There’s no point dealing with individual homes or groups of homes when the overall owner can escape punishment or oversight.

Well-functioning watchdogs are essential for any service or industry, as our interview with the ombudsman in today’s edition reiterates. Everyone — service user and provider — should be entitled to be treated with respect and dignity.

As much as some of us might like to think we will live forever, age pursues us regardless.

Our ageing population brings with it the increased need for specialised care because, although we would all like to live in our own homes, if we have been fortunate enough to acquire them, sometimes health or circumstances dictate otherwise.

In this, too, we encounter the regular issue in this country of a lack of suitable care places or lack of staff, as if, somehow, an ageing population has snuck up on generations of government planners.

As it is, some married couples struggle to see each other when separated because of the distance between family home, where one lives, and nursing home, where the other resides. Yet more individuals end up going into care in towns they’ve never lived in simply because there aren’t enough nursing home spaces within a reasonable local distance.

Our older citizens deserve better. We’ll all be among their number eventually.