Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I offer my condolences to all the families who have lost a loved one in recent times and I pay tribute to all our frontline workers, predominantly in the healthcare area but also those manning our supermarkets and all essential services throughout the country. They are heroes all. I congratulate the Minister for Health and the Government on their work so far, and the efforts they and all the officials are putting in, and every Member of this House because there is a non-partisan approach and full support for the measures being taken, notwithstanding that anomalies have arisen. I can appreciate fully the phrase coined in recent weeks that speed trumps perfection in many of these issues but as anomalies are coming up they need to be highlighted. One such anomaly is that GPs, their staff and surgeries are not being prioritised in the 24 hour turnaround for testing. They need to be included in that 24 hour turnaround, whether they are secretarial assistants manning the reception, nurses in the practice or the GPs themselves because they pose a risk. While the clinical hubs where GPs can refer people are a good initiative to keep Covid-19 away from GP practices, this measure will be required while normal GP services resume. The PPE issue for care workers travelling to homes and nursing homes and those being cared for at home is a requirement. While I appreciate that good advances have been made recently with flights from China, I learnt that on Monday fewer of those flights took place than should have done due to some visa issue. I hope we are liaising with the Chinese authorities to ensure that does not happen again.

I know these statements are on health but I want to mention some anomalies on the payment of social welfare. I am sure the Minister for Health will not mind passing them on to the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection. I represent a Border county. Those people who live in the North of Ireland and work in the South and pay all their tax here do not qualify for the Covid-19 payment. I am aware that under EU regulations a person claims in the state in which he or she resides but that payment is substantially higher here than in the North. The converse is that those who live in the South but work in the North are entitled to the full payment here even though they pay their tax to the Queen. We need to examine that because it is not fair. People aged over 66 years who are self-employed are not entitled to the €350 payment because they are in receipt of something that is deemed to be a primary social welfare payment, the contributory pension of €248 a week. The Minister needs to consider paying the difference between those sums. Another problem is that people who choose to work part time for lifestyle reasons are entitled to the full €350 per week but people who are on half-carer's allowance to care for a loved one at home and is a part-time teacher working substitute hours is not entitled to the Covid-19 payment. They are some of the anomalies I am coming across and which I would appreciate the Minister's taking on board.

In a broader economic sense, I am sure we in this House are agreed that some sort of a Marshall Plan will be required to kick off the economy. While I appreciate that the Marshall Plan was not being drawn during the D-Day landings, we must have a team of people who begin to focus on that. On a Europe-wide basis we will have to find a mechanism to set aside or warehouse the vast cost associated with fighting this nationally and Europe wide because all countries are in the same boat. This country cannot have another period of austerity to pay the bill for this. We are all agreed that whatever it costs must be paid but we must find a way to set it aside, warehouse the cost to ensure we invest in the economy to get everybody back to work and get the economy moving again.

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