Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear it. I have two sets of questions and would appreciate it if we could block them into two sets of five minutes each.

We have been promised the HSE's roadmap on numerous occasions. It is late at this stage. Will it be published tomorrow? This is singularly the most important issue in Ireland now, without a shadow of a doubt. It is more important than anything else. We need to get services back up and running. Surely the Minister knows when the plan is going to be published. Everything relating to non-Covid healthcare is dependent on this plan. I refer here to people who cannot get screening services, for example. It is no good for the Minister to say that he had a great meeting with the director of the national screening service unless we have dates. I would like to know when they will start the process of re-engaging to set up the services. Women and men in this country know when they will be able to buy a pint but they do not know when screening services will begin. We all know that there will be challenges but we do not even know when they will begin which is downright ridiculous and wrong. We also need the plan to deal with many sensitive issues across healthcare and I will pick one in particular. I plead with the Minister on behalf of people with intellectual disabilities for whom the lack of services is having a massive impact. I have raised this week on week but still nothing is happening. We cannot just leave these people isolated. When will the plan be published? What are the timelines for screening and the resumption of services for those with intellectual disabilities?

I have a few other questions in the first round, one of which is on modelling. We are doing modelling on everything related to Covid but I presume modelling is also being done in respect of all non-Covid matters. In that context, I ask the Minister to tell us about morbidity and mortality modelling in the context of the lack of health services over recent months. How many additional people will be affected in terms of morbidity and mortality? I am sure that the Minister has that data in front of him. That would be obvious information for the Minister of Health to have, in my view. How are we using Coivid-related data from other countries to inform our decision making?

Questions relating to acute care were asked previously. I do not want to go over the ground again, but I will ask, in light of the decisions that the Government has made on service provision, whether modelling been done on community and acute capacity and how that will be affected across the various regions.

See this speech in context