David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State gives me a figure of €600 million and no detail of what that will mean. I published a plan in the first week of August and we set out what is necessary. The last figures we got from the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, showed 610,000 people - record numbers - waiting to see a consultant. They showed that inpatient and outpatient waiting times were up and that, across all of the specialties, people are waiting longer. However, there is no sense of urgency from this Government and no idea what is facing front-line healthcare workers.

As to the planning that goes into putting the extra staff and the extra beds in our hospitals, we know it takes time. However, coming with a plan in the middle of September when we know the crisis is here and now is not good enough, in particular when we have been asking the Minister for months to come forward with a plan. It is not good enough to throw out a figure and say that we will spend a certain amount of money at some point and that we will come in at some point.

We had a plan announced by the Government today on living with the virus but there is no Government time to debate it. I hope that when it announces its winter plan, there will be proper statements in the Dáil so the Minister can be held to account.

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