Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister spoke about the behaviour of the virus. Dr. Tony Holohan raised this as well. We can only know about the behaviour of the virus if there is a proper test and tracing system in place. As I said to the Taoiseach earlier today, this is a circular argument. We need to get down the number of people in hospitals and, in particular, intensive care units. We will only succeed in doing that if we can tackle the virus at community level. However, we are failing to do that because of the absence of sufficient testing. It is great that we have flattened the curve and reduced the transmission figure. That is largely due to the fact, however, that people are locked down. To lift the lockdown, we have to have that system in place. Again, the Minister needs to honour his part of the deal in that regard.

My next question relates to staffing. There are certainly big problems in nursing homes. The Minister spoke about this earlier. There are 460 nursing homes but the scheme with the HSE has only brought just over 200 new staff. That is one staff member to every two nursing homes. When one actually looks at the number of nurses involved, there are only 85 nurses. Nursing homes desperately need nurses. Of course, they should be required to have more nurses. It would be interesting to see what HIQA has recommended in this regard. There are only 85 nurses on that scheme, which is one nurse to every five nursing homes. That is wholly inadequate. What steps is the Minister taking to improve that figure?

On trainee nurses and those who were due to graduate this year, a proposal was put to the Minister that it would be possible to bring on stream about 500 nurses if he was prepared to agree with an eight-week early graduation for those nurses. That would lead to a significant influx of nurses. The Minister has done this with medical students and medical graduates as well as with gardaí. Why will he not do it with nurses?

I want to add my voice to that appeal to the Minister to give a direction to pay the money due to nurses, particularly HSE nurses, as well as those in Cork, Limerick and the Saolta group. It is no good patting people on the back. They should be paid the rate for the job, and they are not getting it at the moment.

Another problem in staffing is the whole question of childcare. Will the Minister get together with other Ministers to sort this out? A significant number of healthcare staff, now along with other public servants who are partners of healthcare staff, are out of the workforce because of the failure to make provision for childcare. It is a shambles and it needs to be dealt with.

The last area I want to raise with the Minister is the whole question of mental health. All of the indications are that people who have existing mental health problems are in severe difficulty. A whole range of new mental health problems are emerging as a result of Covid-19 such as anxiety, depression and fear, particularly in the case of young people. Recent surveys showed that over 50% of young people are complaining about these conditions as a result of Covid-19. There is a need for a significant mental health response from the Government. Has the Minister had any engagement with mental health reform? If not, will he arrange that in order that there can be a mental health response to the current problems? This involves, for example, ensuring that counsellors are regarded as essential service providers and that arrangements are made for one-to-one counselling to take place at a safe social distance. That needs to happen quickly.

We need a clear framework in place to take us through the coming months and possibly years to deal with the considerable overhang of mental health difficulties which are arising as a result of this pandemic. In that regard, will the Minister give a commitment to publish the review of A Vision for Change and to commit to funding it?

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