Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies for their contributions to the vital debate here this evening on the Government’s response to Covid-19. While I was sitting here for a number of minutes after the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly left, I took notes and would like to respond with some of these before I go into the rest of the speech that the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, has prepared for me, and which I will then read out.

As to my colleague across the floor, Deputy Andrews, who spoke about a visit to St. Mary’s, I will liaise with the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, on that issue and if he is not able to attend I will certainly go there myself to meet the residents.

Deputy Cahill spoke about a particular case. I will not discuss individual cases on the floor of the Dáil but when it comes to adult day services reopening, if anybody is listening in here this evening who has a member of their family who has not returned to one day of service yet in any of the adult day services, I would like them to make contact directly with my office. That is not where we would want our adult day services to be. My understanding is that all adult day services are open and that there is, at a minimum, a 40% return to capacity. If anyone is not receiving at least two days a week in any of their adult day services, please let me know.

While I acknowledge that there is a significant issue around transport at present, I need to know that the adult day services have reached out to all our vulnerable people to ensure that a pre-Covid-19 service is available to them. That also addresses the issue raised by Deputy O’Donnell in Limerick.

As to the issues raised by Deputy Quinlivan, this is not the first time he has raised these issues on the floor of the Dáil. He has repeatedly raised these issues and I know that the Minister is acutely aware of every single one of them.

Deputy O’Donoghue, also from Limerick, has raised an issue about schools and spoke about a particular school and area. This needs to be red-flagged with the Minister for Education and Skills and not just for the cases in one area. Where children who are returning to a particular school have left our jurisdiction and have been in a red zone, the principal and the authorities need to be aware of that because public health is there to protect all families.

Finally, in response to Deputy Joan Collins, clear communication has to be the piece. Members of the public have been amazing in their response in taking on board everything that has been asked of them over the past number of months. When there is clear communication, they will respond accordingly and will react in the same way.

As we go forward into the next phase, whether that be chapter 2 as the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly has said, clear, concise, communication must continue. It is important for us as elected representatives to continue with that clear line of communication and not to muddy the waters.

Our overall goal is to reopen our society and economy as safely as possible, given our current knowledge of Covid-19, the causes of the transmission and the pattern of the disease in our community. It is a challenge facing governments the world over. In developing our response we are guided by NPHET and by the advice of Departments and Government agencies. Collectively, our objective is to strike a balance between what is safe and what may risk increasing transmission of the disease. The greater the degree of reopening and the more contact people have with one another, the higher the risk that we will see an increase in the transmission of the virus. This requires careful consideration as to the best course of action. We all want to return to normal but it is not possible for each sector to return to normal at the same pace. Therefore, we are prioritising certain sectors of society at this time in the hope that we will all be able to return to normality at some stage.

The key message is that maintaining virus transmission levels at the lowest possible level is key to maintaining progress with Covid-19. We continue to see a combined effort by everyone living in Ireland to maintain the solidarity that has marked the past number of months, with people continuing to do the difficult work of remembering to keep apart, to keep washing one’s hands, appropriate coughing and sneezing etiquette and more recently, the wearing of face coverings on public transport and in shops. I know all Deputies will join with me to thank the individuals for their hard work and resilience. It is clear from the experience of this disease both in Ireland and abroad that an extremely cautious approach is required.

We are still waiting at this stage for effective treatments for the disease. While a huge amount of progress has been made and a number of drugs have been shown to have an effect on Covid-19, we are still without a definite treatment. We are also still without a vaccine although there continues to be encouraging progress reported in the development of new vaccines.

For now, the public health advice remains our best defence against Covid-19. However, it is important to record the progress that has been made. Much of our society and economy has now reopened. What has changed in many respects is how we interact with others in these situations. It is important now to think of how we do something and not just what we do. New public health measures were agreed on 18 August in response to an increase in case numbers. These measures remain in place until 13 September. In the meantime, our public health teams, the HSE and NPHET continue to monitor very closely the prevalence of the disease within Ireland and are endeavouring to suppress it as quickly as possible wherever it appears.

The Government has also agreed that it will set out a roadmap for resilience and recovery in order to guide the next stage of our approach.

Finally, I extend again my sympathies to the families and friends of those who died in recent months due to contracting Covid-19. I also acknowledge the contribution of the front-line workers in the national effort to combat this disease.

It is also important to say that we sometimes forgot to acknowledge certain sectors when we moved from phase 1 to phase 3, one of which was the adult disability sector. It played a phenomenal role on 13 March, when many of the adult day services just closed down and the service users were returned to family members where these families no longer had the access or opportunity for respite and where their loved ones put the last stroke on the calendar on the wall on 13 March. Some have only begun again to mark their calendar in the past number of weeks. Those families became very frustrated in the latter weeks because they felt that they had been forgotten about and that their services were not going to open. There was poor communication. The most important thing we have to remember is that during Covid-19, the Department of Health, the HSE, the front-line workers, families and service users all worked so hard together to protect the most vulnerable. There was serious cohesion among all. It is important as we go into our next chapter to ensure that this cohesion remains. At the same time, as we reopen economies and society we do not want to leave anyone behind. As Minister of State with responsibility for disabilities, I certainly do not want to see any of my service users left behind. Yet again, I say to any family member watching in tonight that if his or her loved one has not returned to an adult day service I need to know and would like to know. Please communicate with me because I will need to know why this is so.

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