Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

First, I want to say to the Deputy that the health service has performed heroically during Covid-19 in dealing with the impact of the disease. The front-line workers right through to the administrators and senior management have worked very hard, night and day, to protect the people of this country. No services were restricted or closed down without the most serious consideration being given to the well-being of patients. Cancer services were not closed down in their entirety. Even during the first phase, they were not closed down. A whole range of issues happened, of course, in terms of screening programmes and so on and that has caused problems and challenges. There will be significant pressure on the health services now in terms of the restoration of services. In fact, hospitals right now are busier than they were even at the highest levels of activity in 2019. In a way, that is a good thing in terms of people coming back. We need to have a substantial programme to deal with delayed diagnoses and make sure we can accelerate programmes of intervention, diagnostics and so forth. That is something the Minister for Health, his Department and the HSE are very focused on. We have allocated significant funding specifically for the restoration of cancer services in the context of Covid-19 and services more generally.

In regard to the national children's hospital, the situation is well known. The Deputy said we had an opportunity to address it in 2017 and 2019, but we were not in government then. She needs to define what she means by a radical reappraisal or approach to this. She needs to spell out what she means because it is not clear.

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