Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity and put on record my thanks to those who are putting in superhuman effort to deal with this crisis. I include in that Ministers and their advisers and senior public servants who are making very difficult decisions in the face of this virus.

One of the biggest problems, apart from the virus itself, is the fear and isolation that are taking a huge toll on many people and it is important that we seek to build public morale at this time.

I am pleased that this debate has not all been about a blame game and criticising the weakness of plans. I think there is a realisation across the House that we are facing a situation where there is no manual. There is no accurate model, as we have seen, to predict how this will work. There are no pathways that avoid a very painful impact for different sections of our community. There is no nailed-down supply chain for the vaccine for which we all hope. It is important that we cut our decision makers some slack at all levels - in the vaccine roll-out, in the HSE and at local level in making decisions - because what we need here is people with the sense of confidence to act imaginatively and compassionately to deal with the challenges that they are having to face without having to look over their shoulder continually. That does not mean there is not accountability but it must be accountability that encourages people's willingness to be innovative, to learn from what is happening and to evolve policy as we gather experience.

As other Deputies have said, it is important that we get the information flow right. The approach of establishing Professor Brian MacCraith's task force with expertise from IDA Ireland and from logistics from the sectors was an important initiative. I refer also to the National Immunisation Advisory Council led by Professor Karina Butler. These are important and they inspire public confidence. Could the Minister arrange that they would have the same sort of daily or weekly briefings so that difficult questions could be responded to by these people in whom I have great confidence because that has been one of the successful features of Dr. Nolan and Dr. Holohan's work, and, similar, would instill the same sort of confidence in people who have their fingers on the various elements? This is not all about politics. Politics should not be making decisions about who gets immunisation first. By and large, these are not political decisions. They are technical decisions based on evaluation of evidence. I wonder, and would be interested to hear from the immunisation council, is age the most reliable determinant. I am surprised that there is not an attempt to identify vulnerable people other than by the age category at an earlier date.

The second question I would put to the Minister is, does he agree that there is a need to have deeper analysis of the collateral damage that Covid is creating outside of the virus itself, in mental health and in education? One of the worrying features in the past week or ten days is the Government's correct instinct to protect special education. It could not be done in practice because deep thought had not been undertaken and fully explored as to how that would be done. We cannot afford that. We need to have more deep investigation of these issues so that we can as the opportunities arise deliver in mental health, in education but also in economic spheres as we seek to reopen sectors of our economy. We can create nuanced responses to allow limited opening for the most important elements as that evolves.

These are my final questions for the Minister. Do we need to think about local escalation because there are patterns that are different so that there would be different levels of protection in different areas? Where stands the private hospital beds and the access? When, how and where will those become available as we see the build up of stress? Can the advisory council be part of the briefings?

I also ask the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, if there is any contingency funding available for community groups. There is one in my constituency, called Doing The Best We Can, based in Raheny, trying to provide support for mental health. Are there any contingency funds available for such groups which are trying to respond on the hoof to real problems that we could see supported?

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