Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I know that. The Taoiseach should have been aware of the issue and how much pressure the system was under. The Taoiseach should have been briefed continuously by the Minister for Health, who should have been completely on top of exactly where we were with this process. We know that recruitment has been outsourced. I am hearing that some applicants cannot even speak to the company they are waiting to be employed by. I am also hearing that the eligibility bar is very high with regard to the matching terms and that, as of last week, qualified people were told that the company had the numbers it needed. However, I heard the Minister for Finance state this morning and the Taoiseach state this afternoon that this recruitment is ongoing. This does not add up. We need to get a grip on exactly what is happening, what will be put in place and how confident we can be that the system will be robust enough to cope after this lockdown is over.

It is very difficult to figure out exactly what we can expect in the future. The Taoiseach talks about hope. We all want to have some hope in a very uncertain time. It is very difficult to figure out what the strategy is. We know we are moving into level 5 lockdown for six weeks, after which we are likely to move to level 3 and then level 2. We know there could be more changes in the new year. We need to know systems will put in place that will prevent lockdowns and not that lockdowns are being used as the only mechanism. That is central to this and we need to hear that strategy.

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