Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I start by thanking Deputy Lahart for raising this matter. I join him in offering my sincere condolences to the family of Dr. Waqqar Ali, as well as the doctor's friends and colleagues, some of who were in touch with me today to share very kind words about their colleague and what an extraordinary man and dedicated doctor he was.

Along with Deputy Lahart I saw the interviews with the good doctor's children today on RTÉ and it was absolutely heartbreaking. We honour his work, and as Deputy Lahart has said, the work of all front-line workers. We recognise that eight front-line healthcare workers have died during this pandemic because of this awful and vicious disease.

Deputy Lahart raises an excellent question, which is whether a compensation scheme can be put in place for the families of front-line healthcare workers who lose their lives due to Covid-19. The short answer is "Yes it can". The previous Government kicked off the work and this Government will continue that work. I will be bringing a proposal to the Cabinet to that effect. The officials in my Department have been working hard on the scheme. I am not in a position to share the proposed details now, as I am sure the Deputy understands, as they must be discussed by the Government. I have looked at the detail today and much work has been done.

Critically, one of the questions we will rightly be asked is whether the scheme will apply retrospectively. There is really no point in us bringing forward a scheme at some distant point in future if it does not apply to the entire Covid-19 period. My full intention is that this will be the case. There may be details that are to be worked through and barriers that might need to be addressed in order to do that. As we both know, most schemes of this type do not tend to be retrospective. I will be making sure that all those barriers will be dealt with and this will be applied retrospectively with the agreement of the Government.

Many of our healthcare workers are protected by various life assurance schemes. As the Deputy points out, locums are not, and neither are many extraordinary workers in section 38 and section 39 organisations and certain other categories of workers across our system. It is my intention that this scheme will apply to everybody who is a front-line and hands-on worker, putting himself or herself at risk every day to keep the rest of us safe. Sometimes, tragically, as we have seen today, they pay the ultimate price for that.

I thank the Deputy for raising the matter today and I assure him and the House that we will be moving as quickly as possible on this. We will bring this scheme to the Government and I hope to have its agreement that the proposal will be applied retrospectively. It is the least we can do to stand with and support our quite extraordinary front-line workers.

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