Mr. Tony Fitzpatrick:

We received correspondence yesterday from the Department of Health - it was sent to all unions - that states the issues for front-line healthcare workers with regard to the additional costs of childcare is their problem and that it was not doing anything about it. It stated that it pulled together the Departments for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Health, Public Expenditure and Reform, etc. and they are not going to do anything about it. The Department does not care about the additional costs that people incur to ensure that they can go to work on the front line of the fight against the pandemic because it is not going to do anything about it. That is the correspondence that all unions received from the Department of Health yesterday, which is an absolute disgrace.

The schools closed. Healthcare workers had childcare arrangements that did not cover school hours. They went out of their way to do whatever they could. The workforce is 75% female, with a lot of childcare issues. Some 92% of nurses and 98% of midwives are female. The Department of Health did not care. Those people did what they could, put arrangements in place in a very difficult scenario and went to work. They turned up for their patients, but unfortunately the Government and HSE have not turned up for healthcare workers in that scenario.