Another complaint concerned a woman who was not given a prompt X-ray after a fall, despite saying she was in pain.

Complaints made by families over the past three years about the level of care in both public and private homes in Donegal, Cork and Kerry, were revealed in reports obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

Out of 76 complaints against 34 private nursing homes in Cork and Kerry, 64 were upheld and staff education was recommended in a substantial number of the cases.

The Health Service Executive said last night it was committed to the protection of older people from abuse.

But Fine Gael's Fergus O'Dowd described the situation in some nursing homes as "appalling".

At the Hillcrest Nursing Home, a private home in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, an elderly resident was found to have a broken shoulder two months after a fall at the home in 2006.

Pain

According to RTE, which obtained the documents, the woman's family made repeated calls for medical assistance after their mother complained regularly of pain.

It was reported that a HSE investigation found "Hillcrest staff did not respond appropriately to repeated complaints of pain".

Another report concerned Falcarragh Community Hospital, a HSE-run public nursing home near Dunfanaghy, Co Donegal. A family complained that socks were put on their father's hands and arms and then tied together. He was also put facing the wall.

In a statement last night, the HSE said "significant progress" had been made in developing its complaints and inspection processes, in both public and private nursing homes, since 2006.

It confirmed it received a family complaint about an "incident" at Falcarragh community nursing unit in August 2006, and had carried out a full investigation.

"Senior HSE staff met with and unreservedly apologised to the family for the distress and upset that this incident had caused, and acknowledged that the incident fell well below best practice in the care of older people."

Formal disciplinary procures were initiated and sanctions were imposed on the staff involved, and a comprehensive policy and system changes were introduced.

Complaints

Complaints against public nursing homes were viewed by the HSE as an opportunity to improve the quality of the services provided and to prevent similar occurrences in the future, said the authority.

The HSE said it was also committed to developing a standardised approach to inspections of private nursing homes and said they would be subjected to unscheduled inspections.

Last year, 812 inspections were completed and these may result in further follow-up inspections, said the authority.

Mr O'Dowd said: "In home after home, the abuse is there. The only difference is that inspections are going on," he said. "We had assumed everything had changed since Leas Cross. While there are more inspections the problem is people are still being abused."

Mr O'Dowd said that while legislation was in place, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) had still not been given the power to carry out inspections of public nursing homes. The government should act immediately to ensure HIQA had the necessary authority to carry out such inspections, he added.

The Louth TD said he had compiled a file on alleged incidents in nursing homes and would be handing it over to the gardai.