Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much welcome this opportunity to once again update this House on the Covid-19 disease and our national response to it. First and most important, I wish to express my sympathy to the family and friends of those who have been lost to this disease since I was last in this House. It is important to say that each private loss is also a loss to our country, and we offer our deep and sincere condolences to all those impacted.

I am pleased today to be able to report some good news to the Dáil. The modelling data, compiled by Professor Philip Nolan and his team, confirms Ireland’s reproduction number is now between 0.4 and 0.5 this week. It suggests a stable transition where we have kept this virus under control while moving to the first phase of reopening our society. This, and other key indicators, give grounds for cautious optimism. The modelling also shows the key measures of severity. The number of people in hospital and intensive care has also remained stable through the last week.

We have seen one to two admissions a day to intensive care units and ten to 15 admissions a day to hospital.

It seems at this stage that despite some more businesses opening, and more people moving, we, the Irish people, have managed to keep control of this virus so far. That is down to the people of Ireland. It is down to their incredible efforts and their incredible self-discipline. People have adapted their behaviour to the realities this virus brings. They have kept their distance, they have washed their hands, and they have adopted the public health advice. They have worked with us to try to find a safe way of living alongside the virus. That is really what the next number of weeks have to be about, namely, while the virus is here, how can we safely live alongside it? We are very grateful to the Irish people for all they have done, all they are doing, and all they are sacrificing.

All of our efforts now, our entire national effort, must be to keep the reproduction number below one, and to keep cases low so that we can keep this virus as weak as possible. Once that reproduction number remains below one, this virus is continuing to be suppressed. The understandable temptation might be to think the battle is won and we can drop our guard at last. That would be an extremely dangerous position to adopt because unfortunately this is certainly not the case. The more we open up our society and economy, which is what we want to do, the more the obligation falls on each and every one of us as an individual to continue to keep ourselves and others safe by following the public health advice that has been shown to date to work.

We are all rightly concerned about the possibility of a second wave of Covid-19 in our country. We have to be clear about who is in control of that possibility. It is not someone else. It is us. This disease cannot come forward on its own. It can only move through being transmitted by people. It is our actions that will decide the behaviour of this disease. We have kept it at bay and we can continue to do that if we stay focused and continue to push home our advantage, as we move to reopen our society and our economy. We hope to move forward, but we will continue to be led by the data on the behaviour of this disease and our capacity to respond to it, and by the public health advice that has brought us this far. Cabinet will decide towards the end of next week if we can move forward to phase 2, based on public health advice.

I know there has been significant debate, and rightly so, in this Chamber regarding nursing homes and long-term residential care facilities. I want to assure this House that the Department of Health, the HSE, HIQA, nursing home operators, and front-line staff have all worked tirelessly to help stem the spread of this virus and protect our most vulnerable. People will seek to apportion blame but we should not forget that the villain here is the virus.

Over the past number of weeks, I have made contact with residents of nursing homes across the country using FaceTime in order to talk directly to them. They are full of steel, resolve and determination, but they also spoke of loneliness. When we took the decision to introduce visitor restrictions we did so with a heavy heart, knowing the impact this would have on people in nursing homes, and on their friends and families. I am pleased to report the health service is examining the issue of easing some visitor restrictions and assessing whether we can allow visitors to meet members of their families outside. I am not suggesting that we can return to normal with visiting, and I do not wish to raise any false hope, but I want residents in nursing homes today, and their families, to know we are looking at this and we are hoping to be in a position to make progress on it shortly. There has to be a safe way of bringing about some level of visiting, and I have seen very innovative ways of doing this in other countries as well.

I also want to update the House on the outbreaks in nursing homes. As we know, we have experienced a significant number of outbreaks in nursing homes. Today I can confirm outbreaks have been stemmed in 29 of those. This means there have been no new cases of Covid-19 in those clusters more than over 28 days. I want to thank nursing home owners and staff for their heroic efforts in the face of great challenge. I am also pleased to see there has not been a new outbreak in a nursing home in over a week, according to the chief clinical officer of the HSE today.

The protection of those in our nursing homes continues to be my priority. As I mentioned earlier, we have established a Covid-19 nursing home expert panel, following the recommendation of the National Public Health Emergency Team. Until now the actions we have taken in relation to our nursing homes have been designed to assist the sector to prevent and control outbreaks of Covid-19. We recognise this virus may well be with us for months and perhaps years to come. We must, therefore, continue to plan how to best protect residents and staff in our nursing homes into the future, asking how can we do better, what are our current measures like and are they effective, what are other countries doing and can we learn from them, and what is best international practice. That planning will be undertaken by the Covid-19 nursing home expert panel.

I am really pleased Professor Cecily Kelleher agreed to chair this for me, and I met with her yesterday. The expert panel will assess, as I have said, the measures already taken, both nationally and internationally, as well as emerging responses to what is still a new virus, to ensure we are doing everything we can in our nursing homes to prepare for and respond to the ongoing threat of this disease in the months to come.

I very much look forward to the first report and the recommendations from Professor Kelleher, due at the end of next month.

We talk a great deal about older people, and rightly so, but on the other side of the age spectrum I am concerned about the impact this pandemic is having on our children. Childhood is a time of joy, innocence and exploration. This pandemic has deprived them of time with their friends and of school time, and that is bound to have an impact. Summer is here and, while it will not be a normal summer, we must look at ways to help our children resume some form of normality. I hear from children right across the country and from their parents. This is a very tough time for our kids and I am not sure we are talking enough about the impact of this pandemic on children. I am pleased to tell the House that NPHET is currently examining the matter of how we provide more guidance and assistance for children and their families, and it hopes to be in a position to make some decisions on this next week.

On the matter of travel, from tomorrow it will be mandatory for passengers from overseas, irrespective of nationality, to complete a Covid-19 public health passenger locator form on their arrival in our country. We have put this measure into law because this form is very important in our overall public health response to this disease. The form facilitates follow-up checks to make sure that people are staying where they said they would stay and it allows us to do more accurate and faster contact tracing in the event of a confirmed imported case. It is really important, as we continue to suppress the virus here, that if there is an imported case we can move very quickly to contact trace and isolate. We will require all passengers, with exceptions such as for aircraft crew, to complete this form. The regulations will be further reviewed by me on 18 June. If they must be continued, they will be kept under very regular review so that they will only be in force for as long as they are necessary.

The introduction of this measure, along with the public health advice for self-isolation for 14 days and, I must say contrary to what I heard on the airwaves this morning, the continuing public health recommendation against non-essential travel off the island of Ireland are to ensure that we can continue to protect the progress that we have made against this disease. I will continue to take my travel advice from public health experts.

It is tempting to look only to the future and to wish to leave behind the sacrifices and the hardship of these last months as quickly as possible. It is very understandable but we must guard against moving too soon or too fast. We must remain patient and be vigilant but there are signs for cautious optimism. If we continue to practice the behaviours that we know will keep ourselves and others safe, we will keep saving lives, we will weaken the virus and we will strengthen our position in being able to take more measures and more moves forward in terms of our roadmap, hopefully by the end of next week.

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