Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that the budget gave many people hope of surviving financially during the Covid crisis. However, I do not support the measures it brought in under the green agenda as they hit rural Ireland to the core.

Yesterday €3.8 billion was given to health. What will this mean for children with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, EDS? There are two children in my constituency with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - Leah who is ten years of age and Ellie who is seven years of age. I brought these cases to the Dáil on several occasions to highlight not only Leah and Ellie's cases but hundreds of others around the country. I was promised that a pain consultant would be appointed so that children such as Leah and Ellie could be treated here. Currently, there is a pain consultant in Dublin two days a week who is on loan from Belfast. What happens when Northern Ireland goes into lockdown? What supports will be in place then?

That is not the only part of the problem. On the same issue, there is not a paediatric pain specialist here. I was told by the then Minister, Deputy Harris, that a consultant was about to be appointed last May. I was promised and promised that Limerick would get a specific physiotherapist for mobility to stall the progression of scoliosis for these children and many more. The difference for them is being able to walk in some capacity. Currently, they are taking two one hour sessions per week costing €140 per session and they must travel from Limerick to Dublin by BUMBLEance to get this treatment. They were turned down for medical patches on their medical cards. These are children but they were turned down for pain patches.

Both of them have been put on an occupational therapy waiting list in the past two weeks. They should have been on this for the past two years. They have removed the medical certificates application, which means people who are trying to get to school or medical appointments, such as these two children, are unable to do so. They cannot be put into cars as they cannot sit down and they cannot get to medical appointments.

A total of 603 people of the 73,000 who responded to the Be on Call for Ireland campaign have started working within the health services, according to The Irish Times. I appreciate 16,000 are being taken on but that leaves 55,000 people who were on call for Ireland. The Irish have to go abroad to study due to the failure of the CAO system. For example, a physiotherapist who went to The Netherlands to study was one of four in 2016. Now there are 50. Would the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, say that this is good for Ireland? Sadly, no. Over the four years of study, there is a requirement to complete a 15 month placement. The students are encouraged to go back to their home country to complete same. Why do the HSE guidelines prevent Irish students completing placements in HSE clinics? We do not have enough places for them in our colleges and yet when another country educates them, we will not even place them. Despite this, children around the country are in need of physiotherapists who cannot be trained here and who we send to The Netherlands to be trained and then they cannot get placed here due to the HSE guidelines. What does that tell the Minister of State? In 2019, 50 went to The Netherlands and they cannot get placements here. It is completely wrong.

As I stated at the start, we all want to lower the emissions but the budget announced yesterday has destroyed the trucking and busing industry in rural areas. If I want to plug in an electric car in my home place of Granagh in County Limerick, my nearest point is in Charleville, County Cork. If the Government wants us to drive electric, it should give us the infrastructure so that we can drive electric and stop spending everything in Dublin.

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