Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of issues are of major importance and full of challenges at this time. There is the ongoing challenge of bringing back the standard of services to what they should be before Covid invaded people’s environment and to be able to do so and develop and grow those services in line with requirements. There are challenges between the elective services, the mental health services and the well-being of people who have been stressed by fears relating to Covid. There is also the question of child mental health services which face serious problems and there are countless issues involved, of which the Minister will be well aware, which have been and will be raised again in the House. There is a serious urgency about getting those services back to a level that is acceptable and on which people can depend. I look forward to the Minister’s response on that point.

An equally challenging question is how we will deal with the current lockdown or semi-lockdown with level 5 Covid restrictions and whether it can be used to build up the services or whether we have learned anything from the past in order to be able to contain the virus. What happened is that people, in good faith, decided that it was beaten. It is not beaten and it will not be beaten in the short or medium term but it can be contained. To what degree does the Minister believe strict observance of social distancing, hand hygiene, mask wearing and so on can contain the onward march of Covid? If people can practise that guidance on a voluntary basis, will it be possible to avoid having another extension of current level 5 restrictions? We now must make decisions on whether these things can be achieved without the massive sacrifice of slowing the whole economy down. To my mind, they can be achieved. As I said previously, there is serious evidence to suggest quite a number of people felt they could disregard the restrictions but it is now essential we put in place whatever is required to deal with the situation that arises when we get to the end of the current restrictions. Essentially, I have asked two questions.