Dáil debates

Thursday, 8 October 2020

7:40 pm

Photo of Mattie McGrathMattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear the Minister speak those words so genuinely because these people's lives and jobs have been upturned. I speak of generations of families. I stay with one in the Minister's own constituency in Bray - he knows where it is. It is a family business employing 250 people and they want to keep those people. I was there last night and saw they still have 30 or 40 staff. They have loyalty to their customers going back and forward, and I salute them. I hope that the Minister has said this to the Ministers, Deputies Donohoe and Michael McGrath, because the budget is on Tuesday. These businesses need funding. Whether the Minister has to get it from Europe or wherever, they need supports.

Is the Minister intent on reforming and revamping the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET? The NHS, across the water in England, has totally revamped its equivalent. Seven months have gone in since this team was pulled together. I salute the work and Dr. Tony Holohan, and wish him and his family well in case anybody would think otherwise, but they need some change or revamping because the fiasco at the weekend was not pleasant. People's livelihoods are depending on it. Forty is far too many. We need people from industry, the self-employed and people from mental health associations. Has the Minister made any calculation as to the cost of the damage to people's health, both mental and physical? I could name all the different checks that have been postponed, and note the mothers giving birth and having bad outcomes with their siblings or partners not allowed in.

A number of people have offered solutions for testing much more cheaply than what it is being done for. The Minister, in answer to Deputy Shanahan earlier, stated that the HSE is dealing with that. It is too cumbersome. It is too slow. We saw the people who volunteered for Ireland from the Army and the different specialties and they have all been left. Some of them have lost their jobs now that they came home. The HSE only employed a minuscule amount of them. Are they keeping the positions for themselves? Is there a closed shop? I am aware of people who have gone with testing systems that are much cheaper and much quicker and they have not even got a look in. There is something wrong in the HSE that it is not engaging with these people. We need everybody with any idea of a good system to be engaged with now. That Minister might answer those questions.

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