Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am not usually one to mention this because I know that Ministers need to travel on occasion. However, there are reasons for travel and there is the extent of the travel. We have had a week where we discussed south Kerry CAMHS, statements on youth mental health, a motion on the cost of cancer and now we have statements on the easing of Covid-19 restrictions and the Minister is not here again. All those issues that we discussed have been compounded by Covid. It is all interrelated. We have been discussing as an Opposition non-Covid care and the build up of crises in our health service because of the impact of the pandemic. We have had space to discuss it politically over the last week. The Minister not being here, when he is over in Dubai at some wellness expo, is frankly disappointing. He is there with the Secretary General in a week when it was learned that the Secretary General had accepted his pay increase. If anyone should be getting an acting-up allowance it should be the Ministers of State over the last week given that they are the ones who have been doing the work here in the Dáil and at committees on health related matters.

I am very conscious of how we discuss this phase of Covid. We do all have a feeling of optimism about where we are going on this. The public health advice is encouraging and positive but we still have Covid wards. We still have 692 people in hospital and there are still people working on the front line and will remain so as people are on wards receiving hospital care or are in ICU fighting for their lives. We still have advice from the WHO telling us that we need to be on guard. We know there is seasonality to this and that there will be new variants.

In the coming weeks I want to see plans from the Government on our PCR testing system and on antigen testing. Will the State be providing any? What is the plan for our vaccination strategy and our booster strategy for younger people? I am getting representations from the parents of children under 16 years who wonder when the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, will advise on the booster for that cohort.

We need to be careful. We need to acknowledge everything that has been done and the two years that we have had but be very clear that the work is still ongoing in our health service and will remain so. We cannot be caught on the hop if the virus takes another unexpected turn. The response that we have had from our health service has been exceptional. It has been great and ambitious. It has delivered in vaccinations and testing. However, there have been times when it has been caught on the hop when it has been under intense pressure. We have had delays and times where people could not get tests and so on. In all my visits to PCR testing, I have had nurses, people who work in social care and members of the Defence Forces. It can be an emotional experience just being present at a testing centre or at the vaccination centre when they are busy because it shows the best of what our country can do, not only our individual workers but also what the State can do and what our Government and politics can do. However, I get a sense that we feel as though it is over. We cannot allow that to creep in because I felt that it had crept in at times over the past two years and then we were caught on the hop.

Over the coming weeks, the Minister needs to publish the plans for vaccination in 2022 and when we will roll-out the next round of vaccinations for vulnerable people. Will it be when they are ready to go or will we take into account the seasonality of the virus? Will we wait until the summer to make sure that people are vaccinated right through to the winter? These are the practical questions.

What about the Covid army of people who came back from abroad to work in our health service on short term or fixed term contracts? Are they going to be regularised into our health service with proper long term contracts with good pay and good pensions? Is that something that is being worked on now? Maybe the Minister is going to bring back all our workers, whether in health, teaching or anywhere else, from Dubai to supplement further the services here. We are under pressure and under stress across the entire health service. We need the resources and plans. The Minister of State, Deputy Feighan, has mentioned it a few times in debates in the last week, as has the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte. There is acknowledgement at least of the resources that are needed but where is the plan?

Are we taking into account the cost of living when trying to attract workers back to Ireland and trying to ensure graduates coming out of the education system stay here and desire a long-term career in the HSE? I mean a career they know they will be able to progress in professionally, not just with respect to pay but also to career progression and fulfilment. I have been speaking to workers on the front line. Sometimes they have put their own careers on hold to work on Covid, be it in swabbing, testing and tracing or whatever. They are going back to other areas of healthcare and they need to be valued and valued in a real way. I want to see that plan being communicated to us clearly, including the numbers, levels and targets, so we know what 2022 is going to look like and so that if the virus takes another turn we know there is a plan in place. We cannot make the same mistake we have made before and treat the last wave we have had as the final one. We all hope it is but we cannot plan for that.

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