Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

May I ask about long Covid? As the Minister will know, I have raised this issue with her on a number of occasions. Prior to Christmas she gave a commitment to explore the issue of defining long Covid as an occupational illness for front-line workers. The Minister might update the committee on the progress she has made on that, particularly in the context of both the Social Welfare Bill and the motion unanimously adopted by the Dáil before Christmas.

I compliment the Department on the statistics it has been providing, which are the only authoritative statistics on long Covid provided by the State. That relates to individuals who, unfortunately, contracted Covid, availed of the enhanced illness benefit and have been subsequently unable to return to work. I know this is a small cohort of the overall number of people with long Covid, but the Department is providing us with the only official statistics in this country, which, bizarrely, are not available from the Department of Health. Based on those figures the Department furnished to me prior to Christmas, we are looking at 35% of people who were in receipt of enhanced illness benefit and who were subsequently in receipt of illness benefit or disability allowance, amounting to 12 weeks after the initial Covid infection, but who continued in receipt of that payment for up to six months. We are talking about 1,475 people up to Christmas who have continued to receive that, which is a very significant percentage of people. If that is reflected across the population in terms of the number of people who contracted Covid, we are talking about very substantial numbers of people who are not able to participate in the workforce. It is an issue the Department needs to look at in terms of the impact it is having on our overall levels of disability and of workplace participation.

In that context, the emerging medical evidence relating to people who have been diagnosed as having the conditions associated with long Covid is that they should make phased progress in terms of activity and a phased return to work. The difficulty is that, under either illness benefit or disability allowance, there is no mechanism for them to do that. Therefore, the emerging medical evidence is that they should make a phased return to work, but the flexibility is not there within the disablement schemes at present to facilitate that. In light of the medical evidence emerging in this area, will the Minister review this in the context of people with this condition? It comes back to the broader issue of recognising it as an occupational illness, which could help to overcome some of the legalities we are talking about in respect of allowing this phased return to work.