Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy McNamara. We will take five minutes each. I do not agree with the Minister's commentary in regard to nursing homes. I went along with the Government, I did my best and then I began to ask questions. The Minister referenced that we are better than other countries and so on. We should not be looking at that. Rather, we should be looking at how we failed to prioritise nursing homes. I looked at all of the committee's minutes that have been made public. I pay tribute to the committee for its work. It met late at night and early in the morning. Notwithstanding all of that work, there was a neglect of the residential centres, nursing homes, direct provision, special centres for people with disabilities and mental health services. My question in regard to dentists has been answered. However, I want to put on the record that almost two months after the declaration of a pandemic we have not made any provision in regard to dentists and the service they provide. One sentence reads: "I cannot overstate the sense of despair and panic in the dental profession or the anger at what is seen as complete neglect of the reasonable concerns of our profession by the Government."

That is repeated ad nauseam. The Minister is to meet them but will he explain why there was no meeting with them up to now and how it did not come up at the specialist meeting?

Second, could the Minister please drop the word "cocooning" now that we realise it is insulting and unhelpful? The whole policy in regard to the over-70s has introduced an ageism and set equality way back. Can we learn from that and please drop the word "cocooning"?

I looked at all of the minutes. Residential centres and clusters in nursing homes were mentioned but there was no sense of priority or of dealing with them. What was even more astounding from the start to the finish of all the minutes I looked at was that direct provision was not mentioned once. Will the Minister tell me how direct provision never once surfaced at any of those meetings?

With regard to private hospitals, I live in a city with four hospitals. There are the two sister hospitals, Merlin Park and the regional hospital, as well as the private clinic at Doughiska and the Bon Secours, and they are all functioning under capacity, both the public and private hospitals. Will the Minister confirm where we are at in regard to the agreement? He gave us the heads of agreement and nothing else. Will he please give us the agreement and tell us how many consultants have signed up? I am getting representations from people in the city who have been diagnosed with cancer and who cannot get surgery, when we have hospitals functioning at 25% capacity.

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