Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I again pay tribute to all our workers who are doing such an amazing job for us at this time, particularly those on the front line. I offer my condolences and those of my party to all the families who have lost loved ones over the past week.

I will raise four issues with the Taoiseach: I will again refer to the issue of transparency; I will concentrate to a significant degree on secondary non-Covid morbidity, which is a real issue; I will also mention the disability sector, which has been forgotten about; and I will refer to childcare.

Before I begin, I put it to the Taoiseach that the handling of the leaving certificate has been an unmitigated disaster and I ask that he would please intervene. The stress these students have been put under is intolerable. This matter needs to be brought to a conclusion. We need a plan B and it needs to be put out there this week. That plan needs to be agreed. The situation cannot be allowed to run beyond this week. It is unfair and completely wrong. The way it has been handled by the Department of Education and Skills is evidence of a dysfunctionality that has not been seen in some time.

It is two weeks since I wrote to the Taoiseach asking a number of questions on decision-making relating to NPHET. He did not really answer my questions so I wrote to him again last week, and he has not replied. NPHET has not published any minutes for its six most recent meetings. This practice was meant to stop but it has not. On the famous testing target, it is interesting that in his letter to me on 29 April the Taoiseach stated that the target of 100,000 tests was set at the NPHET meeting of 14 April. The minutes of that meeting, however, make no mention of the target. How could it have been set at that meeting? The Taoiseach corresponded with me and indicated that is where it happened, but the minutes do not reflect that. What is going on? This is deeply concerning.

I have also asked the Taoiseach to publish the letters written by the chief executive and chairman of the HSE to the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and his Department. They have still not been published and I am asking, quite publicly, for the third week in a row "Why not?" What is the Government afraid of in these letters?

I am becoming worried about the reputation of this Government for transparency when it comes to answering questions, freedom of information, the use of general data protection regulations and the number of times answers are not being given or where people, whether in political our journalistic circles, are being fobbed off. It is happening too often.

The publication of the road map last Friday was very welcome but the Government was very quick to rule out any divergence in views between it and NPHET. The Chief Medical Officer and the Minister for Health, at the press conference on Friday evening last, stated that the Government completely followed the plan. The Tánaiste recently said the same. Philip Ryan of the Irish Independenthas shown twice this week that this is simply and factually not the case. This is an undeniable fact now. I have been trying to get a real insight into the Government's relationship with NPHET, hence all the questions that have not been answered. I want to know exactly why the Government chose to deviate from the Chief Medical Officer's advice on the wearing of face masks and cocooning. Others may not have noticed but there were also changes regarding social visits, retail services and, specifically, travel measures across the grid. I am very concerned about why the Government is afraid to explain all of these. Why is it afraid to admit that it disagreed with the Chief Medical Officer and with NPHET and did not implement their plan 100%? NPHET advises and the Government makes decisions. I do not understand why the Government cannot just admit that and we can all move on. For me, it is not actually a big deal. It is, possibly, a good thing. I am of the view that the Government will have to deviate and take into consideration secondary morbidity and other socioeconomic issues into the future.

I am concerned and worried about why the Government is not willing to be very open about this. It has been consistently denied.

On the issue of face masks, I say pointedly that we need a plan. The Government needs to give guidance on this. Its messaging on it has been all over the place. With secondary morbidity, we face a catastrophic situation unless decisions are made quickly. As Covid-19, thankfully, becomes more controlled - well done to everybody for all their work - and because of the way society has been socialised around Covid-19, we know that people are dying from deaths that would be preventable in normal circumstances. A total of 30% of clinical healthcare appointments are not being fulfilled, while there has been a 30% drop in inpatient activity and a 50% decrease in GP referrals to rapid-access clinics. The UK has made an assessment that an additional 18,000 people will die from cancer. We have no screening programmes and there are scaled-back diagnostics, trimmed-down community work and a drop-off in mental health and disability services. I know of one woman who has been told she will have to wait 24 weeks for her colposcopy results. We have been here before. We cannot go back there. That is not acceptable.

We need a public awareness campaign to ensure people re-engage with the health service. Patients need to be assured that if they need to go to a GP or hospital appointment, they can do so and it will be safe. The campaign needs to be backed up by a plan to get our health service moving. I believe that the roadmap the Government published has a huge gap in it. It needs a correlation with a plan for how we will get our health service moving in tandem.

My critical question for the Taoiseach is: who will draw up the plan? Will it be NPHET or the HSE? It cannot be NPHET; it must be the HSE. I ask the Taoiseach, please, to assure us that is-----

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