Dáil debates

Thursday, 7 May 2020

Covid-19 (Health): Statements

 

8:10 pm

Photo of Simon HarrisSimon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree that we need to avoid a bad flu season at the same time as Covid. The Deputy will have seen my comments that I am engaging with Departments for a much more expansive immunisation programme around flu, removing barriers and so on. It has also been though the HSE board. I will return to her with an update shortly.

I met Mental Health Reform today at the Deputy's request and invitation and I am more than happy to meet the Disability Action Coalition before we meet again next week. I have started initial discussions with a number of organisations. I know, for example, that Enable Ireland, which has been really good in helping to redeploy its staff, has a network of shops, all of which have been shut. We are not blind to this difficulty - we can see it - but I am working my way through it with colleagues.

I will return to the Deputy on the matter of dentists. I will take on board her point on screening and the importance of the follow-up screening and will feed it into considerations. I will make available to the Deputy and the House the figures I have on direct provision.

On the roadmap, I have also asked whether it is possible to put out the necessary figures for ICU admissions, hospitalisation and cases before we can move from one phase to the next. The Chief Medical Officer's general view so far is that there is no such simple formula, that it is about a trend over a sustained period. The ICU figures have been falling nicely, but it is about the trend not the numbers alone. I take the Deputy's point and we will continue to provide as much information as we can.

I took the Deputy's request about the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC. I note that the Secretary General wrote back to her on the breakdowns. I agree that a category of 65 years plus is not enough. There is a very big difference between someone aged 65 years and someone who is aged 103 years. The Deputy's point is well made.

On testing, the only reason I make the difference is because the people who do the testing tell me it is the difference, as do the GPs. The capacity and the case definition will have to align. When we get to 15,000, we will be testing more than many countries, and we already are. I want to see the capacity used but I am not making a political commitment that I will not be able to deliver, that it will be 12,000 or 15,000 every day, because it will vary. The clear advice of-----

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