I will abide by your ruling, a Leas-Chathaoirligh, but we know who the person is. On 31 December 1993, Hilltop Catering Company Limited decided, ostensibly due to the ongoing dispute with a number of residents of Clonmannon village, that it would close the nursing home facility there. At short notice the families of those residing in the nursing home were told they had to find alternative accommodation for their loved ones. Over the Christmas period, this major relocation operation had to be carried out with the assistance of the Eastern Health Board — and I acknowledge the help and care of the board's officials. On 1 January 1994, the nursing home reopened within hours of closing as a retirement home. The significance of this move is that the legal measures surrounding a retirement home as far more flexible, as the House knows, than those applying to nursing homes. When the nursing home was closed by Hilltop Catering Company Limited, all the nursing staff were fired. Many of the staff are fine people — they are well known to me and to other public representatives in County Wicklow — and gave years of devoted service to the residents of Clonmannon and had established a personal relationship with them. On 31 December the scenes at Clonmannon House were heartrending to say the least. Since then, things have deteriorated and in the last 48 hours they have gone from bad to disastrous.
On Friday last, the company notified residents in the village that at 2 p.m. on Tuesday of this week, electricity to the main house and to the sewerage plant, which services the entire village, would be disconnected. My inquiries have established that the ESB cut off the electricity because it had not been paid since July last. That date is very significant because at that time all the residents of Clonmannon village were paying their full service charges. Regarding the level of these service charges, a family now living in the most extraordinary conditions in Clonmannon, paid almost £20,000 to Hilltop Catering Company Limited for the very dubious services that were provided by that company in the previous 12 months. This was a company which was cash rich and if it had been properly managed, we could have looked on it with some confidence to give support to the people of Clonmannon. At 2 p.m. on Tuesday of this week, electricity supply to Clonmannon was cut off. The sewerage, which services the entire village, was put out of commission. The retirement home was closed down and was in the dark. The remaining three residents, when I visited the place, were sitting there with piteous remnants of their lives around them, waiting to be relocated.
At 12 noon on Tuesday — I will not mention the name although it has been mentioned in the press — an elderly lady of 86 years of age was told by the manager of this company, whom I am prevented from naming, that she had one and a half hours to take her husband, who is 85 years of age, and relocate him wherever she saw fit. That gentleman is a diabetic and suffered a stroke in the last five weeks. He is infirm, totally blind and incapable of dealing for himself. His biggest fear on Tuesday was that he and his wife would be separated after a long married life. They had both moved to Clonmannon, she as a resident of a bungalow and he to the retirement/ nursing home. They were paying £20,000 a year for the privilege and they had paid in excess of £40,000 for a lease there. In the final years of their lives they are getting misery and are being treated in a degrading manner. When the electricity was cut off, the bulk of the bungalows in the village ceased to have any communication system with the outside world.
In the particular case I mentioned, that gentleman and his wife had no way of communicating with anybody. There was no telephone, no emergency bell and the area in which they were living was in absolute darkness. There was a group of journalists in that estate last Tuesday night and to say that they were furious that this could happen would be an understatement. All of us there felt sickened by what was happening.
The management of Clonmannon nursing home were left last Tuesday with three elderly people, the eldest of whom was 96 years of age and the youngest 86 years of age. The eldest, a 96 year old gentleman, was moved into a house which had been deserted for some time and which had no heating. Also moved into that house was a 94 year old lady, no relation of his, and the two of them were closeted together. When I visited last night, I thought the situation was unbelievable. They were in the care of untrained people. Guards from the estate were paying visits to the place, looking after those people, but they are untrained. If there had been an accident or an emergency, there was no way to summon an ambulance.
I left Clonmannon at almost midnight last night. The scenes I witnessed there were piteous and appalling in any civilised society. In one household I visited, there were two constituents of mine who had a combined age of 170 years and they simply did not know what faced them. These people had paid £1,000 per month service charge in one case and in the other, £500 per month service charge, and they were fed sandwiches and tea last night. When I left their house at 11.20 p.m. they were still waiting for a person to come to assist an elderly person, who could not be handled, into bed.
Hilltop Catering Company Limited is supposed to be a care firm. It deals with frail, elderly and vulnerable human beings. In my view, it deals with them in the most despicable fashion. It milks people dry and now it is providing them with derisory services. There is a sound basis now for the Minister for Enterprise and Employment to put an inspector, an examiner or a designated official into this company. My arguments in favour of this course of action are not based entirely on emotion. They are based on the facts as they have been presented.
Since we last discussed this matter, the issue of Clonmannon and its financial affairs were the subject of a High Court hearing. In an affidavit sworn at that hearing, of which I have a copy, it was said that the care company was in funds, was operating on a profitable basis and would have a surplus of £26,000 for 1993. Yet, on Tuesday of this week, the manager of that company could tell the press there was no money to pay any of the outstanding bills. When I challenged him personally in front of witnesses with the extraordinary discrepancy between the sworn affidavit and the facts as they now presented themselves, my protestations were dismissed. It was suggested to me that one has to say certain things in affidavits in court. If that is that company's way of dealing with the courts of this land, it is further evidence that it should not be allowed to continue.
We are in a difficult area and having discussed this with Minister of State, Deputy O'Rourke, I understand fully that we are in new territory in company law. Equally, I understand and accept absolutely her personal commitment to doing something in this area within the law. I understand her hands are tied. However, the Minister for Enterprise and Employment could now send a strong message to cowboy operators who wish to exploit the old and the vulnerable. It is time we called a halt to these disgraceful operations.
