Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will get the niceties out of the way first by wishing the Minister well in his role. I expressed the same wish to his predecessor, Deputy Harris, four years ago. Once that is done, we can go ahead with not being nice to each other.

I want to raise a number of issues, the first of which is the effect of Covid-19 on the nursing homes sector. I welcome the additional provision in the Revised Estimates to deal with the crisis. However, the level of death in nursing homes during the Covid pandemic is a national scandal. There is a lot of speculation as to why it happened. That question probably cannot be answered here and will have to be dealt with in a different venue. The relatives of those who passed away will want to know why their loved ones passed away in such a manner.

Over the past 20 years, we have, in effect, privatised care of the elderly. The statistic that stands out is that 20 years ago, 80% of nursing homes were public and 20% were private. Today, the opposite is the case. I am not being ideological in raising this issue. Many studies have shown that where there is privatisation of healthcare - we have seen it during the Covid crisis - the outcomes are much poorer than is the case when there is public provision of healthcare services. That has to be taken on board. The Minister's predecessor said that we need a new process and a change of direction in dealing with the question of private versus public provision. I draw the Minister's attention to St. Mary's nursing home, also called the Telford Centre, which is located off the Merrion Road, not too far from here, and is due to close down at the end of the year. This facility has been completely free of Covid infection and the staff are devastated that it is to be closed down. Will the Minister examine how this nursing home might be brought into public ownership? We need to give the residents and staff hope that it will remain open into the future.

My last question concerns an issue I have raised ad nauseamin the House and still has not been resolved in any way, namely, the lack of progress around the medical cannabis access programme. One year ago to the day, the previous Minister, Deputy Harris, introduced legislation which, for the first time in Irish medical history, legalised medicinal cannabis and allowed doctors to legally prescribe it under a new access programme. However, as of now, not one person has been prescribed medical cannabis products under the scheme. There is not a week that goes by when I do not have parents ringing me to ask for help on this issue. Sometimes I do not know what to say to them other than to acknowledge that the matter was legislated for last year. There are extremely vulnerable children who need access to these products to give them a chance. I hope the Minister can give some notice of progress on this issue.

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