Dáil debates

Wednesday, 9 September 2020

Covid-19 (Health): Statements

 

4:50 pm

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

It is unfortunate that the time allowed for these statements is so short. It is very unsatisfactory, as is much of the engagement. The Minister spoke of political solidarity but there has been very little opportunity for that in recent times. I will return to that in a moment. I ask the Minister if, when summing up, he will clarify exactly what the strategy is for responding to the Covid threat because I do not understand what it is.

We were told at the beginning that the strategy was about hunting down the virus. We know the international advice was to test, test and test. Our official strategy at that stage was test, trace and isolate. We heard that mantra repeated over again. We never got to implement that strategy fully. It seems the system was always playing catch-up with the virus. When, finally, the virus really reached its peak and figures started to drop substantially we did not use that opportunity to put in place a proper testing and tracing system. It is important to remind ourselves that the peak of the virus was back in April. There were steady reductions over the early summer and all of the indications were that the virus would be with us for some time and there was very high likelihood of a second wave. For this reason it was important that we got our testing and tracing system up and running fully. We have never done that. In spite of all of the promises of getting to a point where there would be a capacity of 100,000 per week we have never reached it. The highest was approximately 70% last week and that was an outlier.

What exactly is the strategy? We look at what other countries are doing and, for example, the New Zealand approach, where the strategy was elimination, has been rejected here. We look at what is happening in Sweden, which is to keep the country, society and the economy running and introducing measures to limit the spread of the virus other than closing down the entire economy. That is proving to be pretty successful when one takes everything into consideration.

We started off with the supposed strategy of test, trace and isolation. We never implemented it fully. Nor did we ever at any point review and reconsider what the strategy was. This is not about blaming anybody and there had to be an emergency response to the crisis situation back in early March and April. We saw this huge wave coming towards us and a need to respond very quickly. People did not understand the virus and there had to be an emergency response. It was not until everything was closed down that we succeeded in flattening the curve. That is not a medium-term strategy. It worked because everything was shut down. An enormous price was paid by everybody but it is continuing to be paid. I am concerned there has not been a review, or that the Government has not been upfront and clear about what exactly the aim now is. It seems that any time there is an upsurge the official response is a shutdown or lockdown. That is not a sustainable strategy. It cannot continue like this with two steps forward and one step back. What is the thinking at present on this?

Several months ago, I remember raising with the then Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, the need to establish a wide-ranging expert task force to look at the broader societal and economic issues beyond public health. The public health advice clearly has to be dominant in any strategy but it should not be the only element. Unfortunately, the proposal was rejected by the Government at that stage. I struggle to understand what the Government's strategy or plan is. I hope that next week we will have something a bit more sustainable and logical and based on balancing risk because there is huge risk in many ways. Irish society and Irish people, and young people in particular, have paid a huge price.

I ask the Minister to produce a realistic strategy based on evidence and to explain it to us next week. He will have my support and the support of the Social Democrats if it is based on evidence and experience but to date we have been losing patience I have to say. Unfortunately, the Government has been very weak on engagement with the Opposition.

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