David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yes, there are two speakers. I am sharing time with Deputy Mark Ward. We will take ten minutes and five minutes. I will use four minutes to put questions and will give the Minister four minutes to respond. I will then use two minutes for a supplementary question.

I am all in favour of political solidarity in dealing with this crisis in healthcare and with Covid-19 care. That political solidarity has to be underpinned by real solutions. If I was a doctor, nurse or patient listening to the Minister's speech today, I would be very underwhelmed and disappointed because he knows that we are and have been facing, even before Covid-19 came along, an unprecedented crisis in healthcare, with far too many people left on hospital trolleys day in, day out, or having to wait 18 months or more to see a hospital consultant. Covid-19 has caused an even bigger crisis on a scale that we have never seen before. What is facing front-line workers and patients over the next number of weeks and months is scary and dangerous. They have to deal with Covid-19 care, which might increase in numbers, with all the non-Covid-19 care, with all the lost and missed care, for which we will need a catch-up programme, and with the loss of capacity. We heard of one 800-bed hospital in Dublin that will lose 200 beds. It is the same across the State because of the infection control measures that have to be put in place. We are also facing now into the winter flu.

Yesterday we had the comprehensive economic stimulus plan. It did not go far enough for me. There are nuanced differences and we can disagree on some of those but at least there was an economic plan. Where is the Minister’s plan for health services? Where is his solidarity with the doctors and nurses who were on the front line and want to know where the capacity is coming from to enable them to deal with all that missed care and ongoing care that people will need in the time ahead? We all know that it cannot be done unless there is an accelerated urgent injection of capital and spend, with more beds and staff provided in hospitals very quickly.

We need the most unprecedented targeted spend in healthcare over the next number of months that this State has ever seen. That is the scale of what is needed here. Yet, it is not in the Minister’s speech. The scale of the challenge before us is barely even mentioned. Where is that plan and when are we going to see it? The Minister owes it to all those front line workers.

My second question relates to those staff who have worked so hard and who went above and beyond the call of duty. We know that today we are going to be asked to support a Bill to give pay increases to junior Ministers, and yet all we could give front-line workers is a round of applause, about which many of them spoke on social media. Are there any plans at all to reward those front-line workers with a one-off payment to deal with the pay increases they have been justly looking for, together with the pay inequalities for nurses and consultants in terms of the two tier system? Where is the Minister’s plan for that? That would show real solidarity for those workers. Has he any plans in that regard?

My third question relates to what happened in nursing homes and congregated settings. We had the HIQA report that showed the challenges faced by nursing homes and the nursing sector, both private and public, in dealing with Covid-19. It was very damning report. The Minister set up an expert panel which is going to report very shortly as well. There needs to be a proper probing of all of those reports by the Oireachtas. What is the Minister’s view on how that can be done? They cannot be just rubber-stamped. There cannot be just statements in this House on those reports. We have to know what exactly the Government is proposing to ensure we have proper scrutiny and examination of those reports. More important, we need change to ensure that as we go forward older people are treated with dignity, are protected in our nursing homes and are not left behind as they were when this pandemic struck.

Those are my first three questions to the Minister and I hope he can respond to them.

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