Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is unprecedented for people to be intervening but perhaps it is the Sinn Féin way. It is unparliamentary.

I regret the fact the Deputy has decided to take a very partisan political approach to this issue today.

In terms of public services, I have already referenced education. The plan is also about the unprecedented challenges facing our health services over the coming winter. An additional €600 million has been allocated for innovative measures to deal with capacity issues right through the six months. That is additional money on top of what is there to the end of this year.

In terms of testing and tracing, I note the contrast in the Deputy's language today around testing and tracing and the performance of the HSE with her approach when I facilitated a briefing with the HSE about two weeks ago. There was none of this talk then about "woeful" performance. More than 1 million tests have been carried out in this country since the beginning of the pandemic. Ireland is right up there with other European countries in terms of its testing capacity. It is not good enough for the Deputy to attack people as being "woeful" and to try to belittle the very strong measures that have been taken on testing. Of course we all want it to increase and ramp up but the system can carry out 15,000 tests per day now. It has been at that level for some time now and is under a lot of pressure in terms of community needs and requirements. Deputy McDonald ignored the serial testing programme in nursing homes that was undertaken. It was very comprehensive and has been conducted twice now. It yielded very low positivity rates, thanks be to God, but has kept pressure on the virus in those locations and elsewhere as well.

The plan published today is comprehensive and deals with a whole range of areas. Fundamentally it is about keeping people safe, protecting as many jobs as possible and restoring public services. In terms of quality of life issues, it is about helping and assisting sports and the arts in particular to provide performances, notwithstanding the limitations of Covid-19 itself.

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