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

There are two issues here that need to be separated.

One is the question of whether there is excess mortality and whether there are excess deaths. The second question is, if there are, what is the cause? The two are often intertwined and the subtext of much of the discussion on excess deaths, unfortunately, involves the implication, which is without foundation, that these deaths or a significant proportion of them are being caused by vaccines.

We need more data but, based on the data we have available so far, particularly Eurostat data, there are reasons to say that there is excess mortality in multiple European Union countries. While they are not Eurostat data, there are data showing excess mortality in multiple countries around the world. The point has been made that August 2023 saw Ireland having the highest rate of excess deaths at in excess of 20%. We also know that life expectancy has fallen around the globe.

There is some evidence to suggest there is something happening here. The question then is what that something is. The first and most obvious cause of this rise in mortality is Covid, which did not exist before late 2019. Covid is still a significant cause of death in Ireland. It may be the case that the political establishment and much of the media commentary would wish that Covid had gone away and was something we talk about in the past tense but, unfortunately, it has not gone away. It is simply the policies that have changed. A policy of effectively closing our eyes to it and letting it rip is now the dominant policy worldwide. Some 954 people in Ireland have died from Covid since 3 January 2023. This includes 84 people in the past four weeks. In particular, a disproportionate number of people are still contracting Covid in hospitals and nursing homes, where they are particularly vulnerable and where the disease can result in people's deaths more quickly than would otherwise be the case.

Another explanation that is likely to be a factor is post-Covid morbidity. There are higher incidences of heart attacks, strokes, chronic diseases like diabetes and neurological problems in the months and years following a Covid infection, something which contributes to excess deaths. This may even get worse over time as people suffer repeated reinfection. A recent major study found a substantial rise in the risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, for at least a year after Covid infection. For many people, this can manifest as higher blood pressure, a long-term silent killer that can add to excess mortality in later years.

Another explanation is delayed access to healthcare such as delayed cancer diagnoses during the pandemic leading to less effective treatments and higher mortality. That is combined with a general backlog in all areas of the health system, including many non-fatal areas, after the Covid pandemic, something which has been exacerbated by years of underfunding, which is to be repeated next year, a recruitment and retention crisis that will be worsened by the recruitment freeze that has been announced and an increased population over recent years, which further stretches resources. This has led to very long waiting lists and hospital emergency department overcrowding, both of which lead to greater mortality. In February, the Irish Patients Association estimated that accident and emergency department overcrowding caused 1,300 deaths last winter and, in April, the president of the Irish Medical Organisation, Dr. John Cannon, said: “It’s now inevitable that overcrowding and understaffing in the health services is causing avoidable fatalities.”

I will link this to the question of long Covid. During a Topical Issue debate earlier, I made the point that, in years to come, we will look back at the current policies on Covid around the world and see them as a social crime. It is a social crime in terms of the millions of people who have died from Covid and who are still dying from Covid with many of those deaths being avoidable. It is also a social crime in terms of the tens of millions of people who are being confined to an extremely marginalised life. They are not able to go to work or to school, their conditions are not recognised and they are not getting the support they need. That is really and utterly scandalous. People suffering from long Covid have been found to have higher mortality rates. One study of tens of thousands of people with and without long Covid found that people with long Covid had more than double the mortality rate within 12 months when compared to those who had not caught Covid. The rates were 2.8% versus 1.2%. The lead author of the study said: "Based on the study, individuals diagnosed with long COVID were more than twice as likely to need care for cardiovascular events and 3.64 times more likely to have a pulmonary embolism."

The likely cause of the increase in mortality and excess deaths is pretty obvious. It is staring us in the face following the pandemic we have been through and the policies we have decided to follow, policies I have certainly not gone along with, of effectively pretending Covid does not exist any more and not taking long Covid seriously. We should demand that the Government takes long Covid seriously and implements the measures that were unanimously agreed by this Dáil last November, which included proper investment in long Covid clinics, making sure that they operate every day of the week and are accessible to people across the country, taking Covid and ventilation seriously, the reintroduction of masking in healthcare settings, educating people on the fact that Covid is still with us and on the dangers of long Covid, and educating GPs to ensure people are being referred to the proper pathways for long Covid.

See this speech in context