Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McNamara. My question is related to his. The Minister is probably fielding questions from all over the country and about every hospital in the country.

Much was made in the early stages of the Covid-19 crisis about the Ireland's call initiative asking health care workers to come back and work in the health service. The idea had some merit but there was very little thought put into how it would be carried through. That is the problem. I know of one doctor who registered for the Ireland's call initiative, returned, and weeks after coming home had not heard from it. She went out and got about four jobs herself and still has not heard from the Ireland's call initiative. In this past week a nurse in Donegal spoke on local radio saying she had returned home 11 weeks ago having registered for the Ireland's call initiative and has not received any word from it. That is being repeated throughout the country. The Minister probably will not have the figures now but he might provide them to me. How many people applied for the Ireland's call initiative? How many were accepted? How many shifts or positions have been offered to staff in each county? That is vitally important. It is disappointing to hear stories like this, given the crisis and the fact that so many people did return.

Now we are getting to the point that hospitals are starting to reopen for normal health care, if we can call it that, and some will have difficulty, through lack of staff and infrastructure, in having a Covid-19 stream and a normal stream, which will be necessary to ensure that the health services can work through some form of new normal. Will additional staff be hired? I know there are budgetary constraints but this is a very different time and budgets will have to be different.

We need to address this because our hospitals will face a big crisis. A crisis is coming if we cannot deal with Covid-19 and normal healthcare because normal healthcare will have to resume and will have to continue on, regardless of what happens in the future. I would like to hear the Minister's thoughts on that.

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