Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Collins for raising these issues. Deputy Collins and I were in the Chamber, along with others, discussing this very issue with the INMO during the past ten days. The situation our front-line workers were in was incredibly difficult, and not just front-line workers but also a lot of the management staff and non-clinical staff who were just as essential at keeping everything going and found themselves in impossible situations. The reality is there are many people in the healthcare system who have not had a day off since March, whose personal lives have suffered and who are exhausted. They have gone above and beyond to keep the show on the road and make sure people got treated. I agree with Deputy Collins that they deserve huge credit and huge recognition throughout the country.

Specifically with regard to childcare, there was a big issue and I say this as a father of three young children. I spent the past few months involved in home schooling my children. The schools were closed as were the crèches and childminding options were not available. Obviously, in many cases grandparents could not come in. A childcare scheme was launched but it did not work. I would like to look into this further. From what I have read, one of the issues was there was an understandable reluctance for childcare professionals to come into the homes of the healthcare professionals because, as the healthcare professionals said themselves, they were at risk. A genuine effort was made but it did not work. I will seek a briefing and I will ask that the Deputy is provided with a briefing.

I agree with her that the first thing we have to do is understand what the scale of this is, how many people were affected by it and what has been the cost on them. Do we have a situation whereby many of our front-line workers, whom we applauded quite rightly, have been suddenly left without any leave for the rest of the year? Even if we were not thinking about them, which we must, even if we were selfishly just thinking in terms of the healthcare system, our healthcare workers are exhausted. They are burnt out and the stark reality is that come September, October and November we will ask them to step right back up again. We do need to find ways to support them. I will revert to the Deputy and I thank her.

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