David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is not the first time we have been here, where we have come back to see an extension of the emergency powers. From the outset I will say that I will oppose the motion, as I have previous motions the Minister has brought forward. I say this, and I hope the Minister accepts it, not because I oppose continuing levels of public health measures. In fact, I support them. I support the wearing of face masks, testing requirements, travel restrictions, passenger locator forms and other measures deemed essential to combating the spread of Covid-19. I accept that some restrictions will need to be maintained and some public health measures will obviously have to remain in place so long as they are necessary.

It is also reasonable to say that circumstances have changed since the legislation was first introduced in the first wave of early 2020. We are in a different place now and the Minister acknowledges this. I am opposed in principle to continuing emergency powers almost two years into a pandemic. I remember the very first debate and subsequent debates where the Minister made it very clear these were powers he did not want. These are powers which are and were rightly seen as draconian that should be in place only for as long as they are necessary. The time has come when they are no longer necessary.

I would have preferred if the Minister had brought forward appropriate primary legislation today that would not needlessly and unaccountably devolve the powers of the Oireachtas to the Minister for Health. It is the Oireachtas that makes the law and not the Government or Departments. We have a constitutional duty to protect the separation of these institutions. I say this because time and again regulations have been crafted by the Minister for Health. Sometimes the regulations have been good. Sometimes they have been not so good. Very often, there have been many problems with those regulations. We saw the fiasco of the most recent regulations on the reopening of nightclubs. We had meeting after meeting. Every time we thought there was agreement there were more talks. We had a bizarre situation where for almost a week there were no regulations as the discussions were ongoing.

There was no debate in this House, no democratic accountability, no insight, no oversight and no discussion with the Opposition to any satisfactory degree, which is unacceptable. We need to stop doing that. If there are regulations that are substantial, they should come before this House for proper debate. I support the amendment which has been tabled by Deputy Shortall which calls for exactly that.

I proposed a Bill with my colleague, an Teachta Daly, on this very issue which was not opposed by the Government on First Stage. Essentially, we called for all of those regulations that are a product of the emergency powers that were given to the Minister to come before this House no later than two weeks after they were crafted to be properly discussed and debated. Of course, that has not happened. This will be the third extension of Part 3 of the Health (Preservation and Protection and other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Act 2020. It is also the tenth time that the Government has introduced more emergency powers for the Minister for Health or has sought to extend existing emergency powers already in place. That is not counting the initial Acts which we all supported in early 2020. Every time we call for more oversight, more engagement and more scrutiny and every time that is ignored. We end up with all of the messing that sometimes goes on, with mixed messages, different things being said by different Ministers, various interpretations of guidelines versus regulations, and so on. It all comes back to a clumsy approach by the Government and a lack of any real engagement with the Opposition and, indeed, with the public. The Minister devalues this House when he continues with the route that he is on. He devalues the role of the Oireachtas in crafting legislation and in having a proper debate so that where there are deficiencies or where a lack of certainty exists, this House can play, as it does, a very important role in scrutiny, oversight and debate. We have been deprived of that because of these emergency powers which we agreed to give to the Government in the very early stages of the pandemic for justifiable reasons because we were in an emergency. Everybody accepted that when the emergency was over, those powers should be scrapped. Yet the Minister is coming here again in a completely different set of circumstances looking for this Act, and all of the other Acts, to be extended by a further three months. That is not acceptable and is not the way that these types of issues should be dealt with.

I will raise a number of issues with regard to the booster jab, which was mentioned by the Minister. First, I welcome the fact that the booster jab will be given to those on the front line in healthcare. I have been calling for this for some time and it is the right move. I know that NIAC made a recommendation and the Minister has authorised that use and this needs to happen very quickly.

We know how difficult this is for those on the front line in healthcare at the moment. Many of them have had Covid-19, and in some instances have had it multiple times. Many are out of work. These workers are on the front line and at the coalface of dealing with this virus. It was the right thing to do, as belated as it was.

I also raised privately with the Minister a number of weeks ago a difficulty which some blood cancer patients are having in getting their booster jabs. The problem is that they do not know who is going to roll it out. Many of them would have received their initial jabs, for example, from the Beacon Hospital. They contact the Beacon Hospital and are told to go to their GP. They go to their GP and are told to go back to the Beacon Hospital. They do not know what to do and are simply looking for clarity. Do they have to take any action themselves or is this something that they will be contacted on? That is a reasonable question that they want to have answered because they are simply looking for clarity.

We need to be planning now for the roll-out of the booster jab for the entire population at some point. NIAC will make a recommendation on when the appropriate time for that is. I understand that we also have to play our part to ensure that the rest of the world and developing countries have access to the vaccines. It is prudent that we start planning now for the roll-out of the booster jab for the entire population.

While we will deal more substantially with some of the wider health issues this evening in a Private Members’ motion I am tabling - I hope that the Minister will be here for that debate - I have to say that what is happening in our hospitals at the moment is absolutely shocking. When one talks to people on the front line, one finds that they are beyond exhaustion. I have never seen anything like it. When one looks at what is happening in hospitals in places around the country like Limerick, Sligo, Kerry and Galway, one sees that overcrowding is at record levels for this time of the year. The sheer volume of unscheduled care which is hitting those acute hospitals is forcing them again to have to cancel scheduled care and not just electives. We are seeing where some hospitals have to cancel time-sensitive care also. That has had to happen time and again during this pandemic. We all know the consequences of that, with a very significant amount of built-up missed care that has to be caught up with. That is, in part, why we are seeing many presentations now to emergency departments where people are presenting in greater numbers but they are also sicker when they present because many of them are people who, perhaps, did not get the level of care that they should have got because of all of the measures that had been put in place in hospitals during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This is a very difficult time period. We have over 500 people a day, on average, on hospital trolleys. Those on the front line are wondering what is going to happen for the rest of November as we progress towards December and January. Many of them talk to me about moral injury where they cannot take a break or take annual leave because of the pressures they are being put under by hospital management to stay for as long as they can because of the sheer volume of work and the number of patients who need to be treated. That is simply not sustainable. I said to the Minister as far back as the summer, in June, that we needed to prepare for the winter and for what was coming at us because we could potentially have a change in the pattern of Covid-19, we could have the flu with us and we also could have, as I see it now, more people presenting with respiratory and other illnesses in to our emergency departments.

We have real problems with GP access and with out-of-hours GP access. Many people cannot get access to a GP in their surgery, which is also forcing more people into emergency departments who probably should not be there. A perfect storm has hit the health service. The victims are patients, who have been left on trolleys or are now having their care cancelled, and those on the front line who have had enough.

Something has to happen and a real plan has to be put in place. I do not have any faith in the waiting list plan of the Minister. I ask him to forget about it. What I have seen of the Minister’s waiting list plan is not going to work. Wait times are going to go up because electives and procedures are being cancelled. The Minister very much needs to take a fundamental look at doing something profound and urgent to address the real crisis we have in our hospitals.

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