Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26 ============================================================ Peadar Tóibín (AON), Meath West The Office of the Confidential Recipient was founded in 2014 as a result of the Áras Attracta scandal. That scandal was exposed by RTÉ in a documentary called "Inside Bungalow 3". Disturbing undercover footage showed vulnerable adults being mistreated by some staff within that HSE-funded service. It showed inhumane and degrading treatment to residents and several people with intellectual disabilities in that location. Secretly recorded footage showed that staff members were slapping, kicking, force-feeding and physically restraining vulnerable adults while also subjecting them to psychological abuse, such as shouting and demeaning insults. The exposé revealed a systematic culture of neglect and institutional control, where residents were often treated like eternal children and deprived of basic dignity and liberty. In the aftermath of that, several of the staff faced criminal prosecutions and convictions. Nine were immediately suspended. The scandal triggered multiple national inquiries by HIQA and the HSE. One of the main outcomes of that scandal was the fact the HSE set up safeguarding services and the Office of the Confidential Recipient was created. The then director general of the HSE, Tony O'Brien, said the Office of the Confidential Recipient would, under the terms of the 2004 Act, be a recipient of formal, legal delegation from him, giving her the authority through the health service and the powers invested in the chief executive of the HSE. I have heard shocking news about that office this week. The Office of the Confidential Recipient is to have its powers eradicated. It was an independent avenue for the public to get issues of wrongdoing resolved. A total of 1,500 formal complaints were made. Thousands of consultations and inquiries were held. Hundreds of vulnerable people who had no other pathway to justice used that system. As a result of new decision within the HSE, shockingly, the powers invested in the Office of the Confidential Recipient will be eradicated. The delegation, which is the legal underpinning of the powers of the confidential recipient, is to be set aside. Without that delegation, the office has no independent powers. The new national framework HSE policy for adult safeguarding in the health and social care sector, which was just announced, has a serious and inherent conflict of interest. The HSE will now be its own de facto regulator. The HSE, which is the primary carer for these individuals, will now be the primary investigator of abuse in that particular sector. These fundamental changes mean that the confidential recipient will basically have no independence. She will come under the office of the chief social worker of the HSE. Essentially, it has made that office answerable to the chief social worker on an operational basis. I ask the Tánaiste here today what independent and confidential pathways will vulnerable patients of the HSE have to get justice and have their situations looked at? Will he make sure this decision is reversed? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-26