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

I am glad to get the opportunity to talk about certain issues regarding health. I put it to the Minister that the testing is not yet satisfactory. If the Minister does not have time to respond to me verbally perhaps he will respond in writing. I ask the Minister to confirm or deny that there is just one laboratory doing the testing for all the country. Is the Minister aware there are other companies supplying test kits? Even Abbott is supposed to have supplied much of its product to the United States of America. Its test kits perform the test and give a result in 15 minutes. Why can we not have something like that? We are all very thankful that the figures are down but surely if they were to rise even factionally it would be very important to test people as soon as possible and follow up with contact tracing to confine any cases that may arise and to keep it to a minimum.

People who have other health problems are having serious difficulties in accessing their consultants and doctors. It is constant. We are on our phones every day trying to get people their appointments with their consultants, but it is not happening. These are people with coronary and cancer problems. They are patients looking to get hip and knee operations and who are in serious pain. People are losing their sight and going blind due to needing cataract operations. Indeed, I was told recently that when Covid-19 was beginning two patients were not seen by their consultant and were told to "Take this" or "Take that". Both of them died within a couple of days. I put it to the Minister that this is not satisfactory. This happened at the height of the virus. People who had other health problems and who tried to see their consultant were put off and it did not happen. That is very serious. We do not want any more of that to happen.

As an elected representative many people raise issues with me and I have to raise them in here. Many people regret what happened with the Italians when they came here. If the teams had been allowed to play but the supporters had not allowed to come it may have been as bad. People feel that we exposed ourselves then. There is also the issue of people who were returning from Cheltenham. There were no checks and people regret that also. We give praise where it is due, which I have done, but I must express the disappointment of so many people who regret that those things happened and exposed so many people to the virus. The Italians had it then.

I ask the Minister to do whatever it takes to open things up and get the consultants to see people, to see what the blockage is, which is serious, and to make sure people are not being denied assistance in their hour of need. Stage 2 very quickly becomes stage 3, and stage 3 very quickly becomes stage 4. That is then the end of the line. I appeal to the Minister in this regard.

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