Results 8,161-8,180 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Childcare: Impact of Covid-19 (23 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the witnesses for coming here today and for their very detailed statements. I pay tribute to the extraordinary work nurses and midwives have done during the pandemic. We all applauded the front-line workers, including healthcare workers, in the Dáil but the testimony we have heard here this morning, as well as the anecdotal testimony we have all heard in recent months, suggests...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Childcare: Impact of Covid-19 (23 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank Ms Ní Sheaghdha very much for her reply. It is something that will have to be looked at in an awful lot more detail. It sounds absolutely extraordinary that we would have let that happen to healthcare workers. Ms Ní Sheaghdha's members were put in an impossible situationvis-à-vischildcare. Schools were closed, grandparents were isolating, childcare facilities were...

Emergency Bed Capacity: Statements (24 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I am sharing time with Deputies Butler, Brendan Smith and Crowe. This session concerns emergency bed capacity and, for me, how we can avoid an escalating trolley crisis every year. Before Covid-19 arrived, many of us were debating the trolley crisis in the Chamber. More than 100,000 people were on trolleys on last year, 13,000 of whom were on trolleys for more than 24 hours. Elderly men...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the witnesses for their preparation and time, which is much appreciated. I also acknowledge the great work the committee secretariat has been doing. The briefing notes have been excellent. I will start with Professor Mallon. In his opening statement he said: "I and others in the infectious diseases clinical community believe that it is inevitable that we will experience a...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: In Professor Mallon's expert view, given what he is looking at around the world, and given Ireland's current state of preparedness and capacity, is there a reasonable likelihood that we could see mass lockdowns again this year?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Professor Mallon is giving a very good academic and medical answer and he is giving me all the criteria. What I am asking him is whether, given all those criteria, in his expert view, it is likely we will see another mass lockdown.

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Professor Mallon said in his opening statement that infectious disease physicians have called for a written, detailed, coherent plan dealing with the control of Covid-19 on the island of Ireland and that this should include a detailed end-to-end testing and tracing plan. Can I take it from that he is saying that there is not currently a detailed end-to-end testing and tracing plan and that...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Thank you for that. In terms of how we might deal with another future outbreak because, obviously, we have to do everything we can to avoid future mass lockdowns, are the advances in home testing, in mass testing way beyond the current capacity, in antibody testing and so on - are the advances in those technologies such that Professor Mallon thinks it likely that, this calendar year, those...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Thank you. With regard to measures around international travel, where is the technology in terms of being able to test people at the airports, specifically in terms of the turnaround times? My understanding is the very rapid, 15-minute testing is not advanced enough right now. If we were to put labs in the airports and the ports, could we do testing and have passengers wait for one hour,...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Given whatever technology is available, if we were to put labs at the points of entry, how long would passengers have to wait to get a test result?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: If we were to have a regime whereby, for example, one was tested at the airport, waited three hours for the result and then one had a follow-up test three days later, would that be an equal level of biosecurity to asking somebody to self-isolate for two weeks?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Professor Mallon stated in reply to one of my previous questions that we need to have a very robust test, trace and isolate system in place to avoid future mass lockdowns. In his opinion, is the regime currently robust enough to deal with that?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I understand that but, in the interests of time, I am asking about where we are right now. Are we there yet?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I have another question and I apologise for cutting across Professor Mallon. The INMO and others have called for daily temperature checking for health professionals coming into hospitals. Other countries deploy it for workers going into office blocks and, I believe, even for bars and restaurants. Advanced regimes such as those in South Korea, Taiwan and other countries do that. Does...

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: As part of that package, would Professor Mallon be in favour of us introducing it?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Does Professor Mallon think this would help with that?

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response: Covid-19: Testing and Tracing (25 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Professor Mallon.

Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (30 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I move: That a sum not exceeding €19,897,700,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 2020, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Health and certain other services administered by that Office, including grants to the Health Service Executive and miscellaneous grants and that...

Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (30 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes. On the Deputy's various points, I will get her a detailed briefing and offer her a meeting with the officials, given that different officials will handle the various questions. We could then go into the detail of the school vaccination programme. As to using the NTPF for dental procedures, a part of the programme for Government is the expansion of dental services. That is...

Vote 38 - Health (Revised) (30 Jun 2020)

Stephen Donnelly: I can do so. The main questions in that section were raised by Deputy Feighan and I acknowledge the offers of support from the various Deputies. We are in this together, we need to fix it together and I look forward to working with everybody on it. As we have Deputies living all over the country, that local intelligence will be important, be it on local primary care centres, hospitals,...