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

In the future, we look back at this moment and at how the governments of the world are treating Covid-19 and we will say it was a social crime. It is a decision to allow Covid to basically let rip, condemning millions of people to death but also tens of millions to a marginalised existence due to long Covid and how states are treating it. Hundreds of thousands of people in this country are affected by long Covid. This is an ongoing mass disabling event. We are not just talking about people being a little bit fatigued. We are talking about children who are not able to go to school, adults who are no longer able to work and people who are not able to breathe properly. This is a very serious issue. The problem is that the State has good words, and we unanimously passed a very good resolution in the Dáil almost a year ago, but that has not been acted on. The long Covid clinics are not functioning properly. They are barely open one day a week, and half a day a week in some cases. The Government has no approach towards stopping the continuous spread of Covid. It has not brought back in masking in healthcare settings. There is no awareness campaign for people. The Government is not taking it seriously and it needs to.

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