Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Last week I asked if we could find a mechanism to pay our radiography students in the same way that we found a mechanism to pay our nursing students, given that they are putting themselves and their families at risk by working.

The Minister told me he would ask his Department to come forward with proposals for other students usefully working in the health service and whom we need. He said, "I hope to bottom that out before we meet here again". I am here for an answer, not for me but for the radiography students who are wondering when they are going to get paid.

Last week, I also asked the Minister about extending the power to prescribe to optometrists. He told me he would speak to his Department and revert to me directly. I do not want my speech to be too accusatory but there is a pattern to this. The Covid-19 query system has replaced Dáil questions because we cannot put down questions. I am putting down these Covid-19 queries but I have not had an answer to queries I put down last week. We have passed the deadline. I have had answers from all of the other Departments, but not the Minister's Department. Clearly, something is not working. Perhaps other Deputies could say whether the same thing has happened to them. I have not had answers to my Covid-19 queries to the Department of Health and I should not have to come in here and put them all to the Minister.

Last week, the Minister said he would update the House on progress with the mobile app which is key to being able to relax restrictions. Information I have received about the app has been scarce and I read in a newspaper this week that it will be a decentralised rather than a centralised app. The Minister suggested I raise this matter with the HSE during the weekly meeting with health spokespersons and I, along with Deputy Shortall, did so. A director in the HSE promised me that I would be supplied with a copy of the specification, which I look forward to getting.

If we decide to go with the decentralised model, I welcome that because there are only two countries in Europe, I understand, who are insisting that their health authorities should be able to see the data provided by contact tracing apps. If we tell people that we are going to spy on them or that the health authorities are going to see all of their data they will not buy into this and will not use the contact tracing app.

The Minister said we are all in this together and it is important that we pool our resources and work together. Yet, we are not having an open discussion about the app. I have asked questions, including about its basic specification, and I am not being supplied with any information. I will boil down my question to this. Will the Minister commit, before he launches the app, to publish the data protection impact assessment and the technical specifications?

The lockdown measures are due to expire on 5 May, as I understand it. We are a few days away from that date and there is very little information about what is going to happen. It is very hard for people to plan in that situation. I listened to what the Minister said today about that. We do not know what the criteria for the relaxation of restrictions will be. We do not know what different phases there are. We do not know the different variables and metrics involved and how they interact to make a decision.

The Minister talked about getting the R0 below one, which is great. What about other variables such as the death rate and admissions to acute hospitals and to ICU? How do all of those things interact? The interaction of different variables is a model and I understand that Professor Nolan is working on this model with NPHET. Yet, after weeks of me and other Deputies, including Deputy Donnelly, asking about this, we still do not have sight of the model. Given that we cannot see it, as it has not been published, we do not know the mechanism by which decisions are being made.

The Minister points to NPHET, which is a black box, and says medicine and science is in a room and it makes decisions based on various variables that interact in a way which cannot be revealed to anybody. As a result of that, the public is looking on and many people would like to scrutinise this. As Deputies, we should be able to ask questions and ask why something is happening. It would be useful if we worked together and were all in this together. If we could scrutinise and see the decisions being made, it could create greater buy-in from the public and all of us into the very difficult restrictions which are being made or the decision not to relax restrictions, as the case may be. Our European neighbours are taking a much more open approach to this than we are.

I will not go into the same level of detail on testing for Covid-19 as other Deputies, but I want to ask about the Irish Blood Transfusion Service and blood donation. I understand it is still taking place. I ask the Minister to publicise the fact that people can still give blood and that it is a reason for people to leave their homes. A lot of people have a great need to contribute something or feel they are doing something for the cause. Can the Minister investigate whether we should screen blood donations for Covid-19 antibodies and if it would provide more information for the system in order that we could determine the extent of the spread of the disease and how we are getting on with it?

The therapeutics, that is, the drugs to deal with Covid-19, are an important milestone in the roadmap to getting out of these restrictions. I understand that there is a very promising drug, remdesivir, created by Gilead Sciences. I also understand that Gilead has extensive production facilities within this country. In the same way that PPE became a huge stumbling block for us in making progress with this disease, I am worried that the production of these antiviral drugs will also cause a slowdown or be a blocking point for us in making progress. What measures will the Government take to plan for the manufacture of these therapeutics in the Irish system?

I will not ask about face masks as my Sinn Féin colleague has already done so, but I will mention that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has shifted position and published differing advice. The advice has changed in different countries and Germany is now telling its citizens to wear face masks in public. I feel sorry for people who are working in positions such as checkouts, where hundreds of customers are going past them all day. Those customers should be wearing masks in order that they do not cough on those people. I would like the Minister to make a change in that policy. People will forgive him for having had a different position earlier on.

Public parks are still open and it is important that people have somewhere to go which they do not have to pay for, particularly when they are restricted in the number of things they can do. However, private landscapers are not allowed to work. Those who work in public parks have been designated as essential workers, but people who work in private parks have not and many housing estates have parks which they cannot use. They have been locked and chained up for months because they have not been taken in charge. I do not want the Minister to make no changes next week. I would love if he could issue an executive order that allows private landscapers and gardeners to work, with sufficient precautions, in order to reopen these private parks.

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