In 2020, Dublin poet Rachael Hegarty, like so many sons and daughters of dementia sufferers, fretted as the Covid pandemic restrictions began to bite: “They Locked down all the nursing homes today. / The sign says Covid 19, No Access. / Ma, please, please, tell me it won’t end this way ... / Go to sleep. Dream of dance. We’ll be ok. / I swear to Good Jaysus, I’ll get access. / They locked down all the nursing homes today. / Listen Ma, I wont let it end this way.”

The families impacted by such trauma are bound to have many questions they would like answered by Ireland’s proposed Covid inquiry. There has been much speculation recently about the various areas such an inquiry might cover, and deaths in nursing homes are often mentioned in that context. Figures released by the Central Statistics Office in 2022 showed that between March 2020 and February 2022, 29 per cent of Covid deaths occurred in a nursing home-setting and many of the images we associate with the pandemic relate to the barriers between families and residents of the homes and the distressing isolation they caused.

It would be very helpful and constructive to look at how that challenge was handled, but to also take that opportunity to spark a wider debate about the treatment........

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