Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that the Deputy has done a huge amount of campaigning and work in regard to cardiac services in the south-east. I also congratulate him on his election. On the second cath lab in Waterford, money is ring-fenced for it. I will get a status update for the Deputy. It is not for me to police what is essential or non-essential in regard to construction works, but there is an exemption for essential works to continue. I would have thought that the refurbishment of the existing lab was an essential work. I will raise that issue directly with my Department and the HSE and I will revert to the Deputy in that regard. I know how important and sensitive that issue is for the people of the south east.

On the projects which the Deputy highlighted, it is clear the south east is a very innovative place because the Deputy has highlighted a number of projects under way where Irish companies and Irish industry are eager to help and support our national effort. I would appreciate a note on those projects, which I will then ensure is given to the Office of Government Procurement and that any assistance that can be provided by our State agencies will be provided.

On the issue of testing, the point made by the Deputy regarding in-house swabbing is a valid one and one I know the National Public Health Emergency Team is looking at. Currently, we are largely using the National Ambulance Service, mainly for reasons of speed. What we want to do very quickly is try to find as much of this virus as we can in our residential care settings so that we can quickly move to try to break the chains of transmission, as we seem to have largely done so far in the community.

However, the Deputy's point about the fact that many nursing homes have the clinical ability through experienced nurses to carry out in-house swabbing is valid.

Regarding the issue of HIQA and its visits to nursing homes, I assure the Deputy, as I have assured nursing homes and as I have spoken to HIQA, that the purpose of these visits is to be supportive, not to catch anybody out. The purpose is to visit both public and private residential care facilities, voluntary and otherwise, nursing homes and the like, to engage and to see whether what is meant to be happening there is happening and whether the supports and the connectivity for supports that are meant to be in place are in place in order that we can have more than anecdotes of what is going on and see very clearly from the regulator areas that are doing well. I hope to be able to report that many nursing homes are doing well because I believe that people are working really hard in them. We must remember that the majority of our nursing homes are still, thankfully, Covid-free, which is some achievement for them. This is a highly infectious virus, and people are doing an awful lot of work. The visits are therefore a supportive tool to provide us with accurate information from the regulator that I think people in this country expect.

The NTPF is the administrator of that scheme. I do not expect or wish the scheme to be bureaucratic. Obviously, certain checks and safeguards need to be in place. I know that meetings were due to take place today and perhaps yesterday in that regard, certainly in recent days. There has been ongoing engagement between officials, the HSE, the NTPF and nursing home representatives, and I am due to meet Nursing Homes Ireland again tomorrow on this issue.

To respond to the Deputy's final two questions, I thank him for his comments on the leadership being shown by Ireland on research and diagnostics and so on. I want us to remain in that space. We have appointed Professor Colm Bergin to head up a research group on Covid-19 in our country. We have also carried out one of the first health technology assessments by HIQA on new testings that may become available in order that Ireland can be ready to avail of any of these in the future.

Finally, regarding the issue of extra staff for our nursing home sector, I know this is a very important and very sensitive matter. All the unions were brilliant in agreeing a voluntary redeployment scheme, but I must concede that it is tough to match appropriate staff to appropriate settings. We have already seen, I think, 61 directly-employed staff moved to the private nursing home sector. I expect that number to increase, and the HSE is due to give a census update on that this evening.

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