Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It would be easy for us to say that Covid should be a fully stand-alone service line within the HSE and that we should be able to run one of the most comprehensive testing and tracing systems in the world independent of the existing HSE workforce, but that would not be a realistic request to the HSE. The HSE has pointed out repeatedly that while it is redeploying and is back-filling posts as fast as it can, it is a difficult recruiting environment generally. It has also said that the swabbing centres and swabbing service are a serious clinical activity. It has people there who are managing teams. These are experienced clinicians and it is simply not possible to remove all that clinical and therapy experience and all the experience of people who have been involved from the start and have a stand-alone service. There has to be continuity and senior clinical supervision, and the HSE is maintaining that. However, it has committed to redeploying as fast as possible but also as fast as is appropriate to maintain the safety and quality standards in swabbing.

I fully agree with the Deputy that there is a cost to these therapists not being in their front-line roles. We have testimony from people across Ireland, particularly children, who have not been able to get the access they normally would get because of this. Unfortunately, one of the things we must deal with in the HSE and the healthcare system during the Covid pandemic is the same system, essentially, having to fulfil both roles. We must fight Covid-19, and Ireland is doing very well by international standards in that fight, and we must run the full healthcare system at the same time and try to alleviate issues such as the trolley crisis, which we experienced in previous years.

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