Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, five minutes each for myself and Deputy Mattie McGrath. As the Minister knows more than anybody else, people throughout the length and breadth of the country have put their shoulder to the wheel in fighting this pandemic.

I know great strides and efforts have been made with regard to contact tracing and testing but it is an area in which we must keep upping our game. We must achieve a quicker turnaround. There are still cases of people getting tested and then waiting considerably too long for their results. We need quicker turnarounds. I ask the Minister to make a statement on that issue.

With regard to hospital waiting lists, because of what has happened, both our private and public hospitals have been shut down for the very important ordinary routine work hospitals have to do. We already had massive waiting lists for cataract treatments, hip and knee operations and all of the other procedures that need to be undertaken but they are now really backed up. We need to start dealing with that job of work and getting through those lists. There are people at home today who are going blind or who are in severe pain while waiting for hip and knee operations. I ask the Minister to make a statement as to how we can better use our hospitals to get through the lists more quickly and in a more timely fashion than ever before.

I was very thankful to him for something. We are in a very unusual position in County Kerry in that we have a public hospital and a private hospital, both of which are excellent and which are in sight of each other. We are one of only a few places in the country in that situation. I was personally very thankful to the Minister for meeting with the excellent manager of the Bon Secours private hospital in Tralee. At that meeting, we discussed many different methods by which the two hospitals could work together in a more connected way. I would like the Minister to expand on that. I want the HSE to work on that and to make those hospitals work better because I know that they can. I ask the Minister to make a statement in that regard.

Everyone in the country is complimenting our healthcare workers, and rightly so. I want the Minister, however, to do a very special thing. It is an unusual thing to ask but I want him to stop praising our nurses and other healthcare professionals and instead to start paying them. I want them to be paid the money they are owed. I want the pay agreements that were in place to be honoured. I ask the Minister to specifically make a statement explaining why catering staff, who are very important people, have not had a pay increase for 12 or 13 years, because I cannot understand it. If we do not have catering staff working in the kitchens, hospital will not function properly. It is not right or proper. The Minister knows how much inflation has increased over the past ten, 12 and 13 years. Those people have not got €1 extra in pay in all those years. That is wrong. I want the Minister to make a statement on that.

I also want him to clarify the situation as regards beauty and hair salons. I asked the Taoiseach about this matter earlier this afternoon. I would like the Minister to elaborate. What is the Government now saying to the proprietors of beauty salons, hairdressers and barber shops? When are they going to be allowed to open and to function properly?

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