Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, and wish him well in his work. As the Ceann Comhairle said earlier, we all need him to do well. I am sure there will be a high level of co-operation as there was in the production of the Sláintecare plan. If we are on track and if we are serious about accelerating Sláintecare, he will have support across the board in doing that.

The purpose of this session is to look at the Revised Estimate. To a large extent, this is looking at it after the event because much of the money has been spent. I want to reiterate comments made by others on the manner in which the Estimate was produced. It is easy to excuse many things given the Covid crisis but the people responsible for producing the Estimate were not, in the main, involved in Covid. Lessons should have been learned from the criticisms the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO, made on the presentation of the Estimates. Those messages should have been heard and we should not be in this position yet again. This is not just a criticism of the Department but it means the rest of us in the Dáil cannot do our job properly in terms of scrutinising a huge spend. We cannot establish whether we are getting value for money in the way the money is spent. The extraordinary thing is that with the additional €2 billion allocated, the performance metrics have not changed at all. It is ridiculous that there has been no change in the structure of the Estimates. That has to be taken on board as it will not be tolerated for another year.

I want to ask some questions on where we are at the moment in respect of Covid. There are concerns about the lack of detail provided on expenditure on testing and tracing and on PPE and on the deal done with the private hospitals and with Citywest. The private hospitals deal is looking like costing somewhere between €400 million and €500 million. My understanding is the beds in Citywest are largely empty, and have been for most of the time, at a cost of €25 million. It was absolutely right to prepare for a surge and ensure that we had capacity for that. However, it is important to point out at this point that we had rapid exponential growth in cases of Covid for a six-week period but we reached the peak around 9 April and the numbers have been rapidly reducing since then, thank goodness. We are down to very small numbers at this point. I cannot see why we have not had the roadmap for restoring non-Covid healthcare long ago. This is about the sixth week that the roadmap has been promised. I do not blame the Minister for that, but his predecessor promised week on week that it would be agreed the following week by the HSE board. We still have not seen it and there is a huge amount of capacity there that seems to be unused and that we are all paying for. That does not make any sense. When will that roadmap finally be produced?

My next question relates to foreign travel. We should listen very carefully to what the CMO said. He has been ringing alarm bells, especially over the past week. We must take note of that. We have been told about the green list, land bridges and all of that, and that is right. The data should drive that. If we are to introduce, as I think we have to do, measures to potentially ban flights coming here from some countries or ensure there is legally based supervision of people coming in from badly affected countries, is legislation required for that and is it the intention of Government to introduce that legislation? Otherwise we are on a hiding to nothing in terms of the risks that are being run.

The Minister often talks about data and data should be driving all decision-making around this. There is now quite a body of data built up and we have many people involved in that. The problem is that most of it has been kept secret. I spent five or six weeks chasing the Department of Health to get data on the prevalence figures. It had it but it just did not produce it. There is no reason all the data associated with Covid should not be open source. Will the Minister give a commitment to ensure that happens so he brings the public with him and there is a clear rationale for decisions that are being taken?

My next question relates to strategy. What is the strategy on the containment or the elimination of Covid? I heard about an outbreak in a nursing home. We are being told about potential clusters. What happens if many people come in from abroad? What is the strategy in terms of a rapid response to a threat like that? Is there a plan to target people in a specific locality or setting, such as a nursing home? What is the plan for testing and tracing? Is there a strategy to ensure we respond rapidly to any new outbreak or upsurge?

My final question relates to overall healthcare and the health service. We will have other opportunities to talk about the Minister's intentions in relation to Sláintecare. However, I am concerned about the over-concentration of the Minister and his party on the NTPF. Yesterday morning, the Minister said in an interview that he wanted to see strategic partnerships with private healthcare. What exactly does he mean by that? It really concerns me, given what many of us feel arose out of the Sláintecare committee and also what the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, is saying. If money is put into the NTPF, it is being taken directly out of the public healthcare system and it is delaying reform.

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