Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I, too, would like to express my sympathies and the sympathies of the Social Democrats to those who have died during this Covid-19 pandemic in our health system. There is one particular time when people want to be around somebody close to them and that is when the person is dying. I know from my own experience of having been with my both parents when they died that there is something very comforting about that in the future. It is regrettable that owing to the restrictions around funerals people will have terrible regrets for a long time. It is only when one attends a funeral in another country that one realises the importance of the funeral process here.

There was a discussion regarding today's sitting and essential workers. I have been contacted by several family members of workers and workers themselves questioning why they are deemed to be essential when they are not health care workers. In some cases, these are people working in warehouses to provide for shops that are not open. I am trying to rationalise this. I even had a conversation about it last weekend with an official to try to understand it. There are people who are very upset that the restrictions in this regard are not being fully adhered to. There is no rationale behind some of the sectors that remain open. It is important to put this on the record. I am sure I am not the only Member who is receiving calls on this particular issue.

As part of our work as public representatives we are not only meeting here, we are also working remotely problem-solving, linking people to services and acting as one-stop-shops gathering information, inputting that information and linking services. All of that work is happening. We are also raising here concerns that the public are raising with us. We need to be able to do this. It is reassuring for the public to hear their concerns being raised. This is one of the reasons it is important for us to meet. There is no doubt that there is frustration regarding our ability to do our job. There is an expectation on the part of the public, on the basis of the telephone calls and emails we are receiving, that we need to be able to do that job. I welcome the commitment that there is to be a scaling-up in the Departments' ability to respond to queries because we have lost some of the helplines that would have been available to us. People are raising general issues such as the number of tests being carried out, the time it takes to get result and personal protective equipment, with the quality of what has been provided of particular concern. There is also concern about nursing homes, social welfare issues, domestic rents and, increasingly, commercial rents. The crises that existed heretofore still exist such that we are still dealing with issues related to homelessness and other issues.

I acknowledge that people are working differently and remotely, including civil and public servants. Many people have been redeployed to, for example, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection where there has been a sudden surge in workload. None of us are expecting business as usual.

There is great appreciation of the efforts being made across the public and private sectors.

There is a high degree of co-operation between all parties and groups in this House. Government is not under the kind of normal scrutiny one would see because we realise this is an exceptional situation. However, we need to be able to have a two-way engagement. Often it seems that one inputs information but it takes a long time to come back. It is often not a two-way engagement, which is quite frustrating.

I have heard concerns expressed yesterday and today over batches of personal protective equipment, such as gowns and masks, that are not usable. It may be that there are bad batches and I realise that this was a consignment that was delivered very quickly. If that is not sufficient to protect people, we must address that issue. We must ask if there is capacity to scale something up here domestically. What can be done about it? That has been raised with us in a very serious way and we cannot ignore that issue. We need to see if it can be manufactured differently. It may only be that there are some bad batches within the consignment delivered. Will the commitment be fulfilled? If not, how do we deal with that issue? Can anything be sourced domestically? There have been very good examples of companies coming forward with material that has been used.

By and large people have been fantastic in getting behind the advice to stay at home and take the relevant precautions. The best way to ensure that continues is by being very honest with people about the challenges. I heard the Taoiseach talk about bumps in the road regarding testing. That is not enough. He should come out and say exactly what the problem is in some considerable detail. This is not just about the current crisis. Every week will be different. As we get past the point where, for example, we might be filtering people back to work, there is a concern that we would have a regime in place and that we would not have a new outbreak or an increase in cases by virtue of not having that regime in place. We need to know what the problems are. As has been said already it is really important to follow the World Health Organization advice to test, test, test and then identify the contacts.

Dr. Gabriel Scally made a very interesting contribution yesterday about an all-Ireland approach. This is not a political issue; this is a practical issue for managing the next stage. We cannot emphasise enough that we need an all-Ireland approach if we are to get control of this virus until a satisfactory vaccine is identified.

Even if it is not today, I ask the Minister to give us some detail about the equipment.

It is important to hear something very constructive about the tests. I completely understand this is not about a diagnosis, but about a management. It is very difficult to figure out how we were planning to have many more tests and then all of a sudden, we discover it is not possible to do them because of a shortage of reagent and possibly for other reasons. We need to see the actual position plotted out over a period of time.

It is absolutely legitimate that front-line healthcare workers are tested first. We are hearing of people being frustrated that they cannot get back to work; they want to be back at work.

Intensive care beds are not just about a place in a hospital. They are about equipment but they are most of all about the staff who are the ones who will deal with them. We cannot even factor what the number of ICU beds will be if we cannot ensure that people can get back to work. It is really important that this issue is addressed in a thematic way where we prioritise those who need to be prioritised.

On nursing homes, this is something people are really upset about. There have been really restrictive access to nursing homes for many weeks now yet there are outbreaks in the nursing homes. It is right that HIQA is in and doing an evaluation. I have been asked on several occasions if there are arrangements that people could live closer or within nursing homes. That kind of thing is being talked about. On registration charges, someone told me they were asked to pay €350 to re-register even though they did not intend to be a nurse again. Can we make sure there is nothing like that included in respect of other allied expertise? We should not be hearing that kind of thing.

I add to other voices to wish Tony Holohan well. His illness was very public and I hope he will be fine.

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