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

I thank the Deputy for his query and I would commit to that. I have publicly said on a number of occasions that the implications of Covid will be with us right through 2021. We need to take it in bite sizes and the immediate necessity is for all of us to take stock on our individual behaviours in reducing social contacts and the level of congregation in which we engage. This is essential to get the numbers down and in some counties and cities to avoid having to be put on level 3, but it is within our grasp. Limerick and other areas have proven that by getting the numbers down. Cities are volatile at the best of times when it comes to Covid because one event or incident can lead to a significant outbreak, as we saw in Cork with restaurants and pubs in one or two areas leading to approximately about 70 cases of Covid-19. The impact of that on our health services is significant.

I share the Deputy's concern about non-Covid services such as coronary care and cancer care but it is essential that we tell people we want to continue non-Covid health services, to get waiting lists down and to improve diagnostics and speed at getting diagnostics. However, a lot of that depends on our behaviour with Covid because the greater the number of Covid patients we have to admit to our hospitals and ICUs, the less capacity we will have to deal with coronary care, cancer care and other key ailments and diseases, etc., that affect the major organs of the body. There is a contract and an objective there. The better we behave collectively and individually, the better we give capacity and space to our front-line workers and hospitals to deal with non-Covid healthcare. The winter initiative is about providing unprecedented resources of €600 million over the next six months to alleviate capacity constraints. It is also aimed at dealing with the resumption of health services and enabling diagnostics and operations to take place in parallel with our approach to Covid.

That is the objective and it very much depends on keeping the lid on increasing cases and suppressing the virus insofar as we can. I urge people to do that so people can see their children and grandchildren at Christmas in a meaningful way. Whether they can will depend on our capacity to suppress the virus and get the numbers down and stabilised over the next number of weeks. It remains the Government's position.

On the winter initiative, we are also looking at increased and enhanced community provision around community diagnostics and around the prevention area in terms of community respiratory clinics. This is to prevent people having to be admitted to hospitals in the first instance and particularly to accident and emergency departments. That is our overarching agenda, along with the home care hours. There will be a very substantial number of home care packages this year.

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