Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

We are again in a crisis as regards Covid. The Government needs to acknowledge that. Our ICU capacity is in danger of being overrun. There is also the threat of Covid spreading into nursing homes yet again. The Government is once again sleepwalking us into lockdown at Christmas. It is Groundhog Day. What is most surprising is the Government is reported to have been taken aback at the level of Covid-related hospitalisations and the situation we are now in.

Why on earth is the Taoiseach surprised? Look at the decisions his Government made that brought us to this point. After more than a year and a half of a pandemic, it has failed to increase our ICU capacity to the levels that are necessary. We are sitting at little more than half the average for the OECD and, at the rate the Government is going, it will take 13 years to reach the OECD average. After the first Covid wave passed, the private hospital capacity was returned to the for-profit sector, and now it is to be presumed the State will pay over the odds to lease them again instead of taking them permanently into the public system and using them to build a properly funded, quality, one-tier national health service.

Covid-19 is an airborne virus but the Government has repeatedly downplayed the crucial role played by poor ventilation in spreading it. We are 21 months into an airborne pandemic and there are still no legally enforceable, measurable standards for indoor air quality. It is quite incredible when you think about it. The Government refused to introduce anything other than guidance to ensure schools, workplaces and public transport are well ventilated or, where necessary, have HEPA filters, then forced people back into poorly ventilated workplaces and classrooms and onto crowded public transport. Incredibly, after refusing to supply a single HEPA filter to our schools, the Government then abandoned contact tracing and testing in our schools entirely. And so here we are again, utterly predictable and utterly disastrous. To avoid lockdowns it is not enough to rely on the vaccines, crucial though they are. We need a vaccines-plus strategy, based on the principles of prevent, vaccinate and control. We need ventilation, vaccination and vastly increased levels of testing.

At this late stage, will the Government finally take action to avoid the current crisis becoming a calamity? Will it commit to providing antigen tests for free to those who want them, as is done with the National Health Service, NHS, in Britain, to encourage widespread and regular use through the population, and expand PCR testing capacity, which is overwhelmed? Will the Government deal with the crucial issue of ventilation and follow the example of Belgium by saying every workplace needs a CO2 monitor and that CO2 must be kept at safe levels? Finally, will it make our schools as safe as possible for pupils and teachers? Will it reintroduce contact tracing and testing immediately and follow the example of Germany by introducing HEPA filters in all our classrooms?

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