Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her remarks. The cancellation of the healthcare worker scheme has been a source of great anxiety for many parents who have been in touch with me, not only those who are healthcare workers but those who work in other essential roles and those working in other positions. The cancellation was, perhaps, quite predictable. When we last met in the Chamber many Deputies raised concerns about the issue of insurance and a lack of indemnity from the State. The issues that led to its cancellation were predicted by many of the Deputies here. It is disappointing but perhaps not surprising.

The Minister spoke about the fear among essential healthcare workers of working in the home and the potential for transmission, and the rising fear among staff and providers. Many of the parents struggling to work from home to whom I have spoken are not healthcare workers. They would have liked an outreach scheme such as this. They are struggling to manage working from home while providing care and education for their children. It is a source of huge anxiety and huge stress. Many Deputies have spoken about it. The reality is that for many people working from home there is no acknowledgement by their employers of the additional burden of having to work two jobs at once, the added stress this causes and the added stress of delays in work. This outreach scheme could have been very helpful for a huge variety of people and a wider drawing of it could have helped with that anxiety, and helped with the uptake with regard to what the Minister has spoken about. Obviously the stress on working families is significantly worse in single-parent families who cannot share a day or arrangements with a partner.

Generally, many of the parents who have been in contact with me feel there has been very little support for them and for families in general. Deputy Funchion mentioned this, as did speakers in the discussion with the Minister for Finance with regard to women returning from maternity leave. This is one example of how parents and families feel they are not being properly supported. At the end of April, RTÉ reported that An Taoiseach said special paid leave would be provided for the partners of public sector workers to provide childcare at home but a HSE circular earlier this month stated no special leave is available for Covid-19 caring arrangements. Workers were promised one thing but are not getting any of the supports they need and feel they are being let down. Many families speak to me about feeling isolated and being without support, feeling under stress and feeling no acknowledgement from either the Government or their employers with regard to this additional stress they are under.

These are anxious times and the last thing we want to be doing is adding more anxiety to parents in general. Exiting the lockdown is another source of anxiety for parents in terms of infection and whether the creche will still be open to provide for the education and care of their children.

We have a history in this country of some of the lowest levels of investment in the early years sector in the European context. That is quite telling in that many European countries were able to respond very quickly and provide outreach services and better supports for essential healthcare workers. There is a wider conversation that we all need to be having about the future direction of the early years sector and how we support it. However, there is also an anxiety among parents about what happens right now. Many of them feel that they are at breaking point and need those wider supports. One of the things we need to do is try to find some creative approaches. The last time we met, other Deputies addressed the issue of State indemnity for the outreach scheme, which would have helped address some of the concerns. Looking at a wider pool of parents and families could also have addressed some of the current concerns of providers. On the Minister's ideas of the pods in centre-based schemes when those providers open up, has her Department had any links with the Department of Education and Skills? The schools are sitting empty. If there is a limit to the number of children and staff who can be in a physical space, providing an extra space on a temporary basis, when many such spaces are already accessible to the State in the form of primary schools that are sitting empty and not being used, that kind of thing could support the phased roll-out and could allow for greater provision at that stage. Certainly a primary school would have more room for social distancing than a typical creche. The other question that was raised with me was whether there is a plan B. If the services are not there when we go to exit lockdown, what is going to happen? That uncertainty is feeding a lot of people. One person quipped that they felt there was no plan A after the cancellation of the service. Is there a plan B if we get to phases 3, 4 and 5 and the service providers are not there?

I also want to ask about child protection and Tusla. There has been a fall in referrals and, as lockdown ends, many of those protective people are going to start coming back into the children's lives. At that point, we will see a surge in referrals to Tusla. Is Tusla ready for that? Do we need to put extra staff in? Are they thinking about moving staff, even temporarily, to duty teams? Is that part of our thinking on moving out of the lockdown? It is entirely predictable that there will be a surge in referrals. Some students were in contact with me, as I am sure they were with other Deputies, on having their social work placements cancelled and the difficulties they were having with the Health and Social Care Professionals Council, CORU, in terms of registration and adequate hours. Tusla has been creative and has responded very well to the small number of students. It has reached out to them and found a way that will work for everyone to enable these students to finish their placement while also working supporting Tusla. This is great and Tusla should get a pat on the back for it. However, it does not work for students who do not want to work for Tusla, which is quite a lot of them. Can we do something else for this group of students who are having difficulties with registration because of Covid-19? Has Tusla had any contact with the unions on pay and conditions of the students on its scheme?

To pick up on something the Minister said in her speech, she said there is a view from multiple sources and reviews that support a conclusion that Covid-19 infection in children appears to be no more frequent and perhaps less frequent. I am struck by this in the context of Deputy Whitmore's very valid point the last time we met, when she spoke about the language we use around children, the language of vectors and super-spreaders. It seems that language and those contentions have not held up. It really underlines the point Deputy Whitmore made that we need to be very careful in the language we use around children.

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