Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Today, Sinn Féin is providing the Minister and his Fianna Fáil colleagues, as well as Fine Gael and the Green Party, with an opportunity to clearly demonstrate that this Government cares for family carers. Family carers have been severely impacted by Covid-19. Many of them have not had a break for over a year now. As always, they are taken for granted. It is also taken for granted that family carers will just keep going regardless. We must remember that many of these family carers have families themselves. They have children who are put to the back of the row because of their struggle to care for their loved ones. Those children have to watch their mums and dads struggling to keep going financially, physically and emotionally. This struggle is compounded by the lack of respite, the hidden costs of caring and, above all, the fight for services such as physiotherapy, occupational therapy, chiropody and the other therapies these people require.

I am glad to hear the Minister say that €150 million will be provided for community care in the right place at the right time. Those are fantastic words but I got a call this morning to say that our local hospital, the district hospital in Belmullet, is being cut down to 12 beds in the middle of a pandemic. This hospital had 41 beds before Fianna Fáil got its hands on it. This is what the Government is doing to this community. I get so angry when I hear the Minister state that we are providing care in the right place at the right time. Is Belmullet not the right place and is this not the right time?

I watched the "Prime Time" programme on carers last week. I was shocked - I am always shocked about these things - but I was not at all surprised. The reason I was not surprised is that I have seen again and again the culture of protectionism that exists within the system the Minister heads up. It is all about protecting the institution and the people who should be at the centre of it come last.

The Minister needs to fix this. I was contacted yesterday by a person who is 85 years of age and living in Swinford who does not know when they are going to get the vaccine and their GP cannot tell them. When they ring the helpline nobody can tell them when they will get it.

In the same way the mother of a youngster with multiple disabilities does not know when they will get the vaccine. They have to watch what is happening at the Beacon Hospital.

Has the Minister done an audit of all of the vaccines that have been distributed? I know this for a fact, having written to the HSE in late January, and told it about this problem where the friends, cronyism and the vaccine fraud was rampant in this country. Has such an audit been done?

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