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

The Minister of State partly answered my question but I will ask it nonetheless. Many areas are impacted by the current situation but there is one that, it seems to me, the Government should have been thinking about already in our discussions with Europe. One thing that has been revealed clearly is that our public health system is under capacity. We have the lowest levels of ICU and of GP cover and the fewest hospital beds as a proportion of our population. We have sailed dangerously close to the wind. I do not think anybody could disagree that we need permanent increases in the capacity of our health service, across the board. We need to make the case to Europe that there have to be increases in the expenditure in those areas to bring up our health system to safe levels. I wonder whether the Government has thought about that and whether it is discussing it with Europe.

Has there been any discussion about what Israel is doing with the Palestinians, as was mentioned by Deputy Connolly? The Palestinians believe that Israel is using the public health emergency - the Covid-19 crisis - as an opportunity to advance further illegal annexations of Palestinian land in the West Bank. That is very concerning and I hope the Government and Europe are responding to it. Will the Minister of State indicate whether there has been a response?

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