Colm Burke (Cork North-Central, Fine Gael)

For clarification, is the Minister of State saying that in respect of the 159 people getting supports, from 31 December they will be entitled to get pay for a further three months and half pay thereafter? She is. The issue still arises whereby there are occupational illnesses but we have not put long Covid under those criteria. We need to do so because it is something new and we always need to amend definitions as changes arise. This has been a fundamental change.

I will give the Minister of State an example in relation to a member of my own family who got Covid and works as a geriatric psychiatric nurse. She was lucky she had a full recovery. When she went back to work, ten of the patients she had been working with had died in the two weeks she was off as a result of having Covid. That is the kind of difficulty that staff faced. It is not just about suffering the illness, but also about the trauma of dealing with the difficulties during that period. We need to take that into account as well.

I maintain that we should put a scheme in place, because we are talking about a very small number of workers, to give them the support. A lot of nursing staff, doctors and care assistants have young families and mortgages to pay. The insurance companies, where they may have mortgage protection, are not prepared to cover them. Those are the difficulties that some people I have come across have had to deal with. I know the Government seems to have made a decision on this, but I ask that this be reviewed and that we see what further mechanisms can be put in place to support these workers.

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