Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Last week it was announced that Tallaght hospital has had to cancel elective surgeries and close operating theatres due to the second wave of Covid and the major threat it poses to our entire health service. This comes on top of the closure of Tallaght hospital's children's accident and emergency department and its rushed downgrade last month. Decades of Government neglect mean our hospitals have a serious underlying condition, namely underfunding. Thousands of hospital beds have been closed. Pleas for more staff have been ignored. The result is that we have a health service that struggles to cope. Winter is coming and our health staff and hospitals need urgent support. We also must learn the lessons of this crisis and vow to reverse the decades of neglect which Deputy Bríd Smith has spoken about, the entrenched two-tier system which is further and further entrenched, and instead build a one-tier, quality national health service in Ireland. Tallaght hospital needs immediate relief but it also needs long-term investment.

It is shameful that mental health services have been completely forgotten in the Government's winter plan. Not a single cent has been set aside in this plan for mental health services. Even before the pandemic, we had massive backlogs and waiting lists for basic mental health services and supports. The Covid crisis has made it much worse. As well as the extra stresses and strains on people resulting in a significant increase in referrals to mental health supports, we have also seen the suspension and delaying of many of those supports. We need emergency funding for mental health services. We need to be investing in remote psychotherapy and counselling services for those in need and supporting our mental health services.

It struck me in the course of the last week with the extra round of announcements of advisers for junior ministers that the Government now employs 64 special political advisers but only 60 specialist public health doctors. It is a Government that has more spin doctors than public health doctors. In the midst of a global pandemic, the Government is finally talking about investing in public health but we need urgent action here. We need significant investment in tracking and tracing in particular. Despite all of the Government's spin, the reality is that Ireland is still testing at about half the rate of similar sized countries like Denmark. We are still not testing many close contacts such as those in schools. We need to invest in public health, testing and tracing as part of a strategy to crush the curve and to eliminate community transmission. Otherwise we will be caught on a merry-go-round of outbreaks and lockdowns which will continue to disrupt people's lives and our society over the course of the next year.

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