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HIQA Report Into Laois Nursing Home: All You Need To Know

Wednesday, 18 June 2025 10:46

Extensive details about shortcomings at The Residence have been published.

HIQA received 40 notifications of alleged abuse at a Laois Nursing home over the last 18 months.

New details of historic and recent inspections by the the Health Information Quality Authority have been published in an interim report ordered by the Minister for Older People Kieran O'Donnell. 

Since December 2023 the Residence in Portlaoise has been inspected six times, with three recent unannounced inspections taking place this month following a high profile TV expose at the start of June.

This newly published report shows compliance ratings at the facility have been in decline since March of last year with the facility judged to be non-compliant in six of the eight regulation standards assessed in February this year.

HIQA is also confirming it received 40 notifications of alleged, suspected, or confirmed abuse, while there were 23 notifications of unexpected deaths at the 101 capacity Portlaoise nursing home.

The healthcare watchdog is also confirming their concerns over the facility have been referred to gardaí.

There were 17 notifications of serious incident or injury that required hospital admission or resulted in death.

Compliance

The report also detailed the areas where compliance has been most often failed among the 25 facilities run by Emeis Ireland last year.

Of all the inspections of all the nursing homes, 61% were deemed to non-compliant on 'fire precaution' standards.

The figure is 48% for 'governance and management', while there was a 27% failure rate around regulations to do with the standards of the premises being assessed.

Between 1 January 2022 and 6 June 2025, the Chief Inspector received 308 pieces of unsolicited information in relation to the 25 named designated centres for older people.

This information can take the form of a protected disclosures (i.e. information from an employee of the service or a health and social care professional), which HIQA received about nursing homes under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.

Actions

Emeis Ireland has been issued with an official warning of cancellation of registration should they fail to implement significant improvements in the care of residents. 

The Health Information and Quality Authority says they have seen actions been taken to improve staffing at the facility in three inspections taken over the course of this month.

Senior HIQA officials at healthcare watchdog are currently before the Oireachtas Committee on Health this morning where they have confirmed Gardaí have been notified about their concerns.

CEO Angela Fitzgerald says the matter is being taken very seriously:

Taoiseach Micheal Martin says that alone will not resolve the issue:

HIQA Deputy Chief Inspector Finbar Colfer, says trust needs to be re-built:

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