Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

If the third speaker arrives, I will be happy to give way.

This is a serious illness. It is a significant threat to life and health and to the country. We need to do all we can to make sure we reduce the numbers and be careful and cautious. I hear both sides of the debate about this on a regular basis. The truth of the matter is that nobody knows what will happen in the future with regard to Covid-19 so we need to be careful.

It is an absolute disgrace that the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, did not see fit to remain in this Chamber to listen to Deputies from all sides with regard to the most serious issue that is happening in our country. Right now, there is absolutely no democratic accountability for the significant decisions being made in this country. We have a society where businesses are being massacred. Hundreds of thousands of people are being pushed into poverty and significant sections of our health service are being decommissioned from their normal activities and reorientated.

Today, 480 people got cancer and 24 people died of cancer. Today, approximately 27 people will die from heart disease and a similar number will die from a stroke. That number is roughly the same as the entire number of people who died from Covid-19 last month. I do not say that one is more equal than others. All those deaths deserve an equal response from the State to protect those lives but they are not getting it.

I spoke to a doctor recently who told me that, thankfully, none of his patients had died from Covid-19. He had, however, three cancer patients. All had delayed diagnosis and delayed treatments and he was of the view that their lives were lost. I spoke to another doctor recently who has a patient with serious heart disease who has been waiting for treatment since last April. He has been told he will not get it until next year as a result of this.

The Minister for Health has stated that between 20% and 50% of the capacity of the health service has been taken out from normal serves and reoriented towards Covid-19. These serious decisions need to be teased out, discussed and debated. The truth of the matter is that I asked the previous Minister for Health what research has been undertaken by the State regarding the level of mortality and morbidity in all the other elements of society.

Right now, 200,000 women are affected by the cancer screening backlog in this country. The previous and current Minister have admitted to me that no research has carried out at all by the State with regard to the cost of the current plan. When we try to ask questions of the decision-makers - NPHET, which is the most powerful organisation in the country at the moment - we are not allowed. I know of Deputies who must ask journalists to ask NPHET questions about what is happening in the country at the moment. We are having a debate at a time when the Covid committee has been wrapped up and the Minister for Health will not bother his arse to sit in this Chamber and answer questions from Deputies. It is an absolute disgrace. Perhaps he has a busy timetable where he has to be away somewhere else and that is fine. It should, however, have been possible to schedule Deputies' engagement with the Minister for Health in some way that we could ask questions and give our views.

This is a serious illness and we need to do our best to reduce the numbers. NPHET has an important job, and I believe it is doing the best it can, but its terms of reference are narrow. Our terms of reference as a Dáil and as a parliament of the people is to deal with all the issues in society. We need to make sure that cancer, heart disease, stroke and mental health patients are not put to the back of the queue. We need to make sure businesses can operate at some level and that workers and children are not pushed into poverty. We need to be able to live with this illness. To do that, we need to be able to make decisions collectively as a Dáil. That right, which the people gave us when they democratically elected us back in February, has been taken away from us and it is absolutely wrong.

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