Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Paul Murphy for his work in this area, for co-ordinating the briefing in the AV room and for co-ordinating this Topical Issue debate. People living with long Covid do not feel heard. They do not feel supported or believed. I have been open about the fact that I meet a person with long Covid every day as I live with one. These people look fine and healthy. When they report to their GP, there is no test they can take for long Covid so everything else is ruled out. People suggest that they are a little bit down in themselves and suggest it is this or that.

The provision of services is inadequate, as is awareness not only among the general population but among our GP cohort. In the region that the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and I represent, no long Covid clinic is available. A clinic in Waterford city that provides health services for 600,000 people in the wider region has no long Covid clinic available. For those struggling with their energy the idea of travelling to Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Galway to access services is untenable.

We do not have a clear picture of what this issue actually looks like. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Butler, in reply to a question I asked spoke about a follow-up after disease acquisition survey to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year but there is no correlation between acute Covid and long Covid. How will we access these people? How will we find out how many people in the general population are affected by this disease? I am not seeing an approach at Government level.

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