Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry. First, on behalf of People Before Profit, I again extend my deepest sympathies to anybody who has lost family or loved ones and my support and best wishes to anybody who has received a positive diagnosis of Covid-19. I also again pay tribute to all the front-line health workers and essential workers who are protecting us and to the wider public who have unquestionably, through sacrifice and hardship, succeeded in flattening the curve and protecting our health services from being overrun.

Clearly, people have genuinely embraced the idea that we are all in it together and the idea of solidarity that is necessary to overcome this challenge, but that must work both ways from the Government that called for it. I am frustrated at the failure of the Government to be fully transparent and communicative about key matters. My office was the only one whose representative turned up at the first NPHET briefing on 20 February last on the Covid-19 pandemic. At the meeting, my office's representative asked for the modelling in respect of the famous curve for capacity and likely infections. We never got it despite asking for it on multiple occasions. Directly following that meeting we asked, and have asked on multiple occasions, for the advice that the expert advisory group gave to NPHET on all the key issues. We never received it. This underlines Deputy Kelly's point earlier. We have been asking for five or six weeks to see the advice from the experts to the NPHET. Why have we not received it? I do not understand why, but it does not exactly engender confidence.

There are big questions about the deal with the private hospitals. We must have transparency on that deal. It would be absolutely unacceptable if some of the richest people in this country were to benefit or profit from this public health emergency and there are deep concerns and suspicions that this is happening. I hope I will get responses on those points.

Certain lessons that are simply beyond dispute arise from this crisis. First, there can be no question of a return to a semi-privatised, two tier, fragmented and under-resourced health service. That can never happen again. We have seen the cost with the nursing homes. The other day I met a general practitioner I know and with whom I play football. He told me his nursing home is overrun with Covid-19. Most of the staff and many of the patients have it. They have been trying to contact the HSE for weeks. As he said: "The ball was dropped and we were not on their radar". That is what happens when there is a fragmented health system with different parts under the control of different people with different motives. We must have a properly resourced, fully public, national health system and all healthcare capacities and services must be brought under that system. That must happen immediately and that commitment must be given immediately by the Government.

There can be no return to people living in overcrowded homelessness facilities or to the direct provision status quo. That simply cannot happen. It was immoral before this crisis hit and it is now completely incompatible with the protection of public health. There can be no continuation of a situation where empty properties are in the hands of speculators and vulture funds when people in overcrowded conditions need that own-door accommodation to protect their health. There can be no return to the disastrous austerity that followed the 2008 crash and the reliance on the market to solve key issues. That means we must protect workers.

I cited Debenhams and I have been specifically asked by the Debenhams workers to raise it. Bank of Ireland is a shareholder in Debenhams and the Government is a shareholder in Bank of Ireland. If we want to engender solidarity and that we are all in this together, how can we let Debenhams, which continues to operate and make profits in the North of this island and in Britain and in which the Government has a shareholding, treat workers like that? There needs to be intervention. There needs to be a guarantee that workers will not suffer loss of income and that workers will get decent pay and conditions and not pay the bill for the public health emergency we are now trying to fight.

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