Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Minister of State happy Christmas. I will start on a positive note because we have to be positive during the ongoing pandemic. Hospitalisations and ICU admissions have plateaued or fallen. That is a good indication of the direction of things. So far, so good. However, there are dark clouds on the horizon. You only have to look at Britain where the cases are going through the roof. Britain is probably two to three weeks ahead of us with its booster campaign. The indications are that we could be facing an extremely difficult four to six weeks of infections. Hopefully that will not translate to hospitalisations or ICU admissions. If it does we will have a different situation on our hands.

The booster campaign has been very successful but people queuing for four or five hours is not conducive to creating the spirit we had before. People will just not go. That needs to be ironed out. The ongoing public health emergency has been extremely challenging. This is something that our public health services have never seen before. We all have friends who work in hospitals. The environment they have to work in is beyond traumatic. We have said many times, we have huge gratitude for those who are protecting us and our loved ones. There are signs that Omicron is overtaking Delta. It seems much more infectious.

I have two criticisms. The first is not an abstract matter. The TRIPS waiver is a mechanism that provides equitable access to vaccines for those who have not had access. For the EU to block that is shameful. If you cannot do it now when can you do it? Italy and Portugal have unilaterally supported the TRIPS waiver but Ireland has not. If I was a conspiracy theorist I might ask why that was the case. Is it because there are so many multinational pharmaceutical companies in this country? Maybe the Minister of State could answer that. The Seanad passed a motion on the TRIPS waiver yesterday. Ireland has to step up and say that we stand with countries across the world which need access to vaccines.

On ventilation, I welcome the Government's allocation of €62 million to improve ventilation but it is late to the table. This should have been done over a year ago. Ventilation is crucial and HEPA filters have been proven to be really good.

This is not easy by any means. Regardless of who you are, the colour of your politics or what Government is in office, the difficulties are huge. We wish everyone in the health service the best.

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