Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 June 2020

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response

Childcare: Impact of Covid-19

Mr. Paul Bell:

First of all, I do believe that the Government and authorities responsible for health services should at least look at other models in other jurisdictions. The United Kingdom might seem strange as an example but, nevertheless, it did provide childcare and school provision for the children of health workers and workers in essential services in other areas of the economy. That type of provision needs to be planned because, if it is not, we are going to end up in the same position again. We also understand that the health service, going forward, must start ramping back up in order to take care of patients who may not have been able to access hospital services during the lockdown. We are going to see very serious pressures there because some health workers will either be due to take annual leave or there may be issues concerning exhaustion where all annual leave has been taken up. At that stage, we think other problems may present.

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