Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies for their contribution to this debate. Covid-19 has dominated the lives of our people, and, indeed, people around the world, for most of this year and it is fitting and correct that the Oireachtas gives due consideration to the response that continues to be mounted by the State.

The work of the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response is one important area of the role which the Oireachtas has performed on this issue. I acknowledge the work of the committee, the members and the secretariat, and, of course, the Chair, Deputy McNamara, for his efforts. As the House will be aware, I was also a member of this committee prior to being appointed as Minister of State. I have to say I found it to be a very effective committee. Everybody who came in was always well prepared. There was always huge demand for speaking time. There was not a spare minute. At that time, we had to leave the Chamber after two hours had passed. I was happy to chair some of the sessions as well to give the Chairman a break because we were doing three, and sometimes four, sessions every day, such was the intensity of the committee at the time. I compliment Deputy McNamara. The Deputy was impartial when dealing with all the members of the committee, regardless of party and none, and I thank him for that.

As the Minister for Health stated in his opening remarks, we have travelled a long road in relation to Covid-19. It was only about a year ago that we saw the first cases of Covid start to emerge in Wuhan and elsewhere in China, in December and January. None of us could have foreseen last Christmas what this Christmas might be like.

Because there has been a huge amount of conversation tonight on nursing homes, I will focus on that part in the amount of time available. It is important that we realise that a huge amount of work has been done in respect of nursing homes since the pandemic and its many challenges. I wish to remember tonight that during the first spike of the pandemic, we lost 985 of our citizens in nursing homes. Our thoughts and prayers go out to each and every one of their families. When one is sitting down this Christmas and there is an empty chair at the table, that is when it hits home. I know these people were resident in nursing homes but they would have been visited at Christmas time by family members.

To be clear, we are providing a lot of assistance to nursing homes.

Up to €92.5 million has been made available in 2020 to private and voluntary nursing homes under the temporary assistance payments scheme, TAPS, to contribute toward the costs incurred by private nursing homes in acting to suppress and manage Covid-19. A further €42 million has been made available up to June 2021. Obviously nursing homes need more staff; they need more infection prevention and control. They need a lot of supports in place in order to support their residents.

Serial testing of all staff in nursing homes has been ongoing on a fortnightly basis since the end of June. A total of 300,000 tests have taken place and it has proved really effective because if people who are asymptomatic are on the roster for a particular day, they can stay off work if they discover they have the virus to ensure they do not pass it on.

We all know there were huge challenges with PPE provision at the start of the pandemic. Deputy NcNamara will recall we heard about the issues with trying to get PPE in March, April and May. Thankfully that has all been resolved and all nursing homes have an adequate supply. When they have an outbreak there is absolutely no issue with getting PPE to them.

A total of 23 Covid-19 response teams have been set up to provide multidisciplinary and expert advice in the event of an outbreak. I am not going to mention any specific nursing homes, but when a home has difficulty, when their patients go down with Covid or their staff do, these disciplinary teams move in and are there to help and advise and it has made a difference.

As we know, HSE staff have been redeployed to alleviate staff shortages. There is also provision of accommodation for all healthcare workers affected by Covid-19 if they require it.

Much good work has been done. When we are talking of Covid, the most important thing is that we learn. It is very important we learn from what has gone on previously and, as I said, I fully recognise the deep sense of grief and loss felt by families who have suffered a bereavement during the pandemic. To reiterate what the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, said at the start, there are many families looking for answers and we are currently looking at the best way to get them those answers.

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