Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Tánaiste and sincerely hope he takes on board the points I have made. Another issue I would like him to take on board is the plan next week. From a joined up thinking point of view, it is important that the winter plan to be published by the Department of Health follows quickly and in tandem with the plan being published next week. Non-Covid health issues have been significantly impacted. We need a plan so that members of the public can have confidence that they will engage with our health services and the HSE on all of the different treatments they need.

I want to make two suggestions. I do not think our general practitioners can continue working in the way they are. We will have to move to a process of self-referral for Covid testing, especially in the winter months. The Tánaiste might come back to me on that. The second issue is that we cannot sustain a situation whereby front-line workers, such as occupational therapists, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists, are not doing their jobs and are instead part of the testing regime. GPs cannot sustain what they are doing and we need self-referral. Let us get all of the specialists who are badly needed across the health service out of testing and tracing and back to their own jobs. We should get people we can source to do that sort of work.

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