David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to start by wishing the Ceann Comhairle and all of my colleagues a happy new year. Hopefully we will get through this year as best we can.

We are facing into the worst phase of the pandemic on this island. As of this morning, in this jurisdiction, there were 1,750 people in hospital with this deadly virus and more than 170 in intensive care. The HSE forecasted that the best-case scenario for the end of this week was that we would have 1,500 hospitalisations. We have exceeded that. The most pessimistic scenario was for 3,000 hospitalisations and we are edging closer to that. The most optimistic projection for ICU capacity was that we would have 220 patients in ICU and the most pessimistic projection was that we would have 450 patients in ICU, putting real and serious pressure on our front-line healthcare services.

The numbers are not good, as the Minister acknowledged. We have the fastest growing rate of the virus of anywhere in Europe, if not in the world. The Minister might remember, that in December we had a debate in this Chamber before the Government eased the restrictions. I told the Taoiseach at that time, as did others, that we needed to break the cycle of lockdowns. We also said that we could find ourselves in a tough situation if the right decisions were not made. We said that the Government should not put the cart before the horse and that a decision should not be made before the public health advice was given. On the Monday of that week, announcements were made by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste that we would be moving out of lockdown. On the Tuesday, we stood in Leinster House debating that decision. On the Wednesday, the Committee on Health was to engage with NPHET and that was cancelled, I suspect, at the behest of the Government. That move limited our access to information on the spread of the virus. It also limited our ability to interrogate the Government’s decision and the advice from NPHET. The Government said that it based the decision on its own data that it commissioned on opening up hospitality and retail. We were never given that opportunity.

I sincerely hope, therefore, that the Government and its members have learned from the experience of the last few weeks. It is never good to push back, undermine or move ahead of the public health advice. The consequences are real, including rising hospitalisations, an increasing number of healthcare staff out sick with Covid-19 and a real crisis in our acute hospitals. It is not that this was not forecast. The extreme situation in which we find ourselves may not have been predicted but a serious surge in cases was. We always knew this virus could get away from us if we did not get the basics and fundamentals right.

Let us be clear. We have to be factual about what has happened in recent months. The Minister and the Government never got testing and tracing right. It was never used effectively to hunt down the virus. We never got testing and checks at airports right and there is still no enforcement of mandatory quarantine. We never got the all-island aspects right. While sometimes the Minister and the Government want to shift the blame to Sinn Féin on this, we have always been absolutely supportive of any and every measure that can be used to ensure that we have appropriate all-island responses. Responsibility for dealing with this matter falls on the Executive in the North and the Government in the South, and we have never got that right either.

I have also stated previously that we wasted the summer months. We did not put into ICUs the capacity that should have been put in place. We did not build up the necessary capacity in the area of healthcare. I published a plan in the summer months and called for the provision of additional capacity - 100 extra ICU beds - to enable us to be better equipped in January to deal with whatever crisis arose. That did not happen. The healthcare unions and I called for modular rapid-build units to be put in place to increase hospital capacity. That did not happen. In terms of beds and staffing, what we are getting is promise after promise but it is not materialising into anything real for people on the front line.

In recent days I have engaged with the Irish Medical Organisation and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association. Tomorrow I will be meeting representatives from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation tomorrow and the SIPTU health division. They all say the same thing, namely, that front-line healthcare staff are not getting close to exhaustion, they are already exhausted. These people are at breaking point and they are sick and tired of hearing promises from the Minister and the Government. We still have not had any movement in respect of the pay for public health specialists. There has been no movement to deal with the two-tier pay issue relating to hospital consultants. There was a slap in the face for student nurses and midwives who were offered a paltry €100 a week. This fell far short of their expectations and, I believe, what was necessary. As they say to me, they do not have the capacity in the hospitals that they should have to ensure that they can provide a safe service. They know they are facing into a very difficult period because they have to deal with this current surge. There is considerable fear among hospital staff regarding what might be coming at them over the next week as they see the numbers increasing. They also know that significant levels of catch-up care will have to be offered, probably during the summer months.

There will be no let up whatsoever for the front-line staff to whom I refer. Praise is not enough. A clap on the back is not enough. We have to support them in every way we can. I have given the Minister any number of examples of instances where he and the Government failed these people. I appeal to him to meet with the Irish Medical Organisation, the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation and the Irish Hospital Consultants Association and listen to what they are saying and to their descriptions of what the position is really like in any of the acute hospitals across this State. The people they represent are at breaking point and they do not believe that the Government has done enough to support them.

We all welcome the fact that the vaccine is beginning to be rolled out. Like other Deputies, I informed the Minister prior to Christmas that I want to get behind a programme or plan that works but that this must be resourced and there has to be maximum transparency. I welcome some of the information that has been provided here. However, a number of us were briefed recently on the vaccine and I have say the information on mass vaccination centres was sketchy. The information relating to staffing and to the number of vaccinators we will have when we get to rolling out he vaccine out into the community was sketchy. At that point, the engagement with GPs and pharmacies had not happened. It has happened since.

People want as much information as possible. They want to know that when we get to a point where it is vaccines in, it will also be vaccines out. The Minister stated that we will vaccinate 700,000 people by the end of March. We are still being told that there is no change in the context of the 40,950 vaccines arriving each week. Has the number changed? Has it increased? We will get to that in the question-and-answer session, but it is information that people want.

If there is not maximum transparency and we are not getting the information that we need, the vacuum that is left will be filled by misinformation. I do not want that. It is the Minister's responsibility to ensure that we get as much information as possible. In the context of the vaccine roll-out, there are many examples of where that simply has not happened. We need an all-hands-on-deck approach. Much more needs to be done.

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