Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to open by expressing my condolences to the family of the 31 year old carer who worked in a private nursing home in Swords, in my constituency, and whose death was announced in recent days. That underlines the issues and questions raised by other Deputies regarding nursing homes.

In many respects, the virus and the State's response to it have given rise to a type of human rights audit. Whose health protection needs and rights is the State responding to most slowly ? Those of asylum seekers and people in residential settings. Who are we leaving behind? Travellers, Roma, international students and undocumented workers. Few of us are aware of the fact that so many of the front-line workers in this battle against Covid-19 are undocumented workers, people unrecognised, unacknowledged and not appreciated by official Ireland. I recently spoke to two undocumented workers, and I want to represent their voices here today. Both are female live-in care workers who care for elderly women. They are cocooning with these ladies and tending to their every need during the crisis. Both have worked in this sector in Ireland for over a decade. They work in the shadows but provide an essential care service. There are likely to be many hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals in similar situations all over the country, undocumented migrants caring for elderly people and helping them to cocoon. This is just one sector.

As we move forward in developing a response to Covid-19, we cannot have people working in the shadows or being left behind, not only for their own sakes but for their sake of their rights. We need to develop a thorough and robust set of systems to allow us to eliminate and keep out Covid-19, but, also, it is only just and fair that those who contribute so much to fighting this battle are allowed to be full members of society. One of these women asked me to tell the Taoiseach: "We are front-line workers. We cannot go out, we are looking after our ladies, we are working all day, all night, 24-7 and we love them like our family." She said she knows hundreds of other women from her home country who are working in similar situations across Ireland. Can the Government set up a regularisation scheme whereby undocumented people can view a set of fair and reasonable criteria that they need to satisfy in order to be regularised? I am not alone in calling for this - Chambers of Commerce Ireland, the unions, the National Youth Council of Ireland and the National Women's Council of Ireland are on a list of bodies that are calling for it.

Bus Éireann employees are driving essential workers to and from their workplaces as we speak. Many Expressway and rural route buses do not have contactless payment machines. Coins and bank notes are being exchanged in close proximity between driver and passenger. This is a health risk for drivers but also a problem for limiting and controlling the virus. I propose that during this health crisis those Bus Éireann vehicles which do not have contactless payment machines operate fare-free for essential workers until another method, which does not involve the exchange of cash, is put in place.

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