Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The problem is that while all this planning and upscaling is going on, there are people who are very sick with Covid. I cannot for the life of me understand why this planning did not take place a year ago, because it was fairly clear in the early days of the pandemic that there were people who had lingering symptoms that were far beyond the period of ten days or two weeks. I have engaged with people who have not yet gone back to work after two years because of Covid. I engaged over the summer with a senior consultant who had to reduce his working hours because of the long-term effects of Covid. To think that the HSE still does have not a fully operational clinic to deal with long Covid anywhere in the country is totally unacceptable.