Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

People Before Profit has been unique, clear and consistent in arguing that to deal with Covid-19 we need a strategy to eliminate community transmission, so we can avoid a constant cycle of going in and out of one lockdown after another, which is what we believe the Government's strategy is inevitably going to result in. We think the Government is wrong to ignore critical parts of the advice given by the public health experts in their letter of 26 November. In rejecting some of their key advice, in particular around the reopening of the hospitality sector, the Government in fact is endangering Christmas itself and risking the family gatherings, which is what most people want to protect.

If we disagree on these matters, and we do, I hope we are wrong about where the Government's strategy will lead us. One thing is absolutely clear from the public health advice and the letter of 26 November, namely, that its caution about the strategy being pursued and some of the decisions being made by the Government is related to the ability and capacity of our health service to cope with further outbreaks and waves and particularly the resourcing and staffing of our public health teams. It seems there is absolutely no dispute about that.

In this regard, the Government is singularly failing. It is not just that we believe it is wrong in the strategy being pursued but it is failing to provide the resourcing, support and staffing that is necessary for our public health teams and health services generally to be able to deal with further waves of infections and outbreaks.

The public health teams that we praised and applauded are going on strike in January. These are the people on the front line. If we are to deliver an immunisation programme, we will do so with public health teams at one third of the recommended level of staffing and where we have treated them as second class citizens in term of their status as medical specialists. We have recruited contact tracers and testers, who we need to deal with outbreaks, on the worst temporary agency contracts, where they do not even get sick pay and they are essentially in a "hire 'em and fire 'em" position. It is not exactly the way to implement what the public health experts are saying is the much greater capacity, integration and cohesion that is required in public health teams in order to deal with Covid-19.

Finally, there is the utterly disgraceful treatment of thousands of student nurses and midwives. NPHET has also expressed concern about the high level of infections in our hospitals but the Government has removed payment for these student nurses and midwives. They are working on the front line with no payment whatever.

At the very least, will the Taoiseach accede to the demands of public health doctors? Will the Government put contact tracers and testers on decent contracts, pay and conditions? Will the Government pay the student nurses and midwives something instead of exploiting them and paying them nothing when they are working on the front line for all of us?

See this speech in context