The National Bureau of Criminal Investigation has been asked by the Garda Commissioner to examine the Leas Cross report.
Aidan Browne, director of primary, community and continuing care with the Health Service Executive, confirmed the move yesterday when he appeared before the Oireachtas health committee.
He also revealed he hadn't just passed the Leas Cross report by Prof Des O'Neill to the Medical Council and An Bord Altranais but had made formal complaints "about named" doctors and nurses to these regulatory bodies following the publication of the report.
He said the HSE carried out 666 nursing home inspections between January and October this year. He did not know how many were carried out at night.
He said the powers which the HSE had to deal with nursing homes which did not comply with regulations were very weak. New legislation was required, he said, and the Department of Health had been told this by health boards many times.
On the inspection of nursing homes he said the HSE shouldn't be "doing this job at all" given that it was itself contracting beds from private nursing homes. This put the HSE in an "invidious and untenable" position.
He said the HSE had now decided to use the fact that it was paying for beds in these homes as "leverage" when trying to get them to comply with regulations.
Referring to the recent suspension by the HSE of admissions to nine homes he said these were the only ones to which admissions had been suspended since the HSE was set up. He said these included seven homes in the eastern region and two others in the Louth/Meath area which "are the subject of a long-running legal process". All the homes were being actively monitored and further action would be taken against them if necessary, he said.
He added that these homes were being "advised not to take in privately referred admissions during this period and are advised to display a notice in their entrance to this effect, and to advise all current and potential residents. A protocol for advising nursing homes of admissions being suspended is currently being developed."
Mr Browne said the fact that the names of homes to which admissions had been suspended had got into the public domain before the homes were told "shouldn't have happened".
Fine Gael's health spokesman Dr Liam Twomey put it to him that the slowness of the HSE response to the nursing home crisis was "disgraceful".
Dr Twomey added he had been told that one of Mary Harney's political advisers had been "screaming" at a member of the HSE staff for not putting more people into private nursing homes. However, political advisers should have no role in the running of the health service.
Mr Browne said people might shout and scream "at us" but that did not mean they had any place in the chain of command.