Professor Orla Hardiman:

I thank the Deputy very much for his comments on multiple sclerosis. I am really sorry that he had such a circuitous journey in terms of both his diagnosis and accessing services. It is not really acceptable that he has been waiting such a long time for a scan. That should not be happening and probably needs to be investigated as to what the delay is.

With respect to long Covid, certainly, we know there is both a very significant neurological and psychiatric impact of Covid-19. Some work has been done on psychiatry that was published in one of the big journals, namely, The Lancet, showing that something like 20% or 30% of people, or even more, suffer either neurological or psychiatric sequelae from the first round of Covid.

There is a move to develop a set of long Covid clinics. Many of the symptoms of long Covid include the need for engagement with infectious disease. Cardiology and neurology are also parts of it. We have put the need to develop a number of national long Covid clinics into the Estimates, which would include neurological engagement. That is currently in progress through the Estimates. My colleague, Dr. Siobhán Ní Bhriain, who is clinical lead in integrated care, is committed to this and to the development of long Covid clinics. A number are up and running already but there is a need to expand that out.

It is also important in the context of long Covid to describe another set of neurological conditions because the neurological symptoms of long Covid are not unlike other neurological symptoms we see. They account for approximately 50% of referrals that we see in neurology, which are people who have a neurological disability for which we cannot identify an anatomical reason. That is the case in long Covid as well, actually. There is a need for-----