Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter. The Government and the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, are very much aware of the change we are seeing in community transmission and the level of Covid-19 incidence across our country. Of course, we take heart in the fact we are in a very different position from where we were a year ago due to the success of the vaccination programme of the Government, the resilience of the Irish people and the extraordinary work done by all our front-line workers in healthcare services.

Of course, we are looking at the current change in the spread of disease, and as Dr. Tony Holohan and the Government have acknowledged, there is real cause for additional focus and concern as we move to a period when socialisation and household contacts increase. The Government is acting to manage this risk and continue protecting the health of this country. In testing alone, we now have capacity in place for 175,000 tests per week, with 140,000 of them within our community teams and 35,000 in acute testing services. We have put in place a very significant testing programme.

As the House is aware, we are also in an important phase in rolling out our booster campaign. The national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, will make further considerations on the future of the booster campaign in Ireland and we have, due to the work of the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, maintained €1.2 billion of additional funding made available to our health services last year. That will equip our nurses, doctors, healthcare professionals and consultants for what we acknowledge will be a challenging period.

The Deputy asked a particular question about schools. Our public health experts continue to acknowledge and advise us that our school and classroom settings are lower risk and safer when the right measures are put in place. The Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, noted this morning that with the capital plans and capital expenditure she has available for this year, additional funding is being used to invest in our school buildings and do what we can to make them safer as we help our schools, teachers and pupils to stay as safe as possible at this time of additional risk.

I will conclude with the point that this appears to be quite a shift in position from the Social Democrats. Not so long ago I remember the Social Democrats being the lead advocates for a zero Covid approach. The party is now in a very different place. I acknowledge that shift in position and it is welcome. It should be acknowledged that the party was making the case for setting tests and standards that we, at the time, believed would be difficult to deliver. The approach being taken by the Government now looks to reduce risk, although we acknowledge all we still need to do.

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