Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It has taken a crisis like the pandemic to expedite some of these reforms. As Deputy Shortall said, during the height of the pandemic the notion of private and public health care just went out the door. Sláintecare is trying to provide universal healthcare for everybody. However, that is not the reality. More than 50% of people in this country have to rely on private healthcare. That says something about our health service. Why did it take the crisis of the pandemic to expedite some of these reforms? Surely alarm bells should ring straight away that it took a pandemic to move things on.