Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to bring the attention of the House to the high number of dialysis patients in Ireland who have contracted Covid-19. I was contacted late last night by a person who appeared on the RTÉ "Prime Time" programme last night. Some Senators may have seen it. The individual in question is on dialysis and awaiting his third transplant. Not only have 92 dialysis patients contracted Covid-19, some 29 of them have died, which is one of the highest rates in Europe per capita, but there has been a slowdown, almost a stop, of transplants during the Covid crisis. Being a dialysis patient means one is constantly at risk of contracting any virus, but Covid is clearly one that will cause death in severe cases. Dialysis patients have the added anxiety of their children going to school and bringing back illnesses. I ask the Deputy Leader to follow up on what the gentleman to whom I refer, who is a friend of mine, told me late last night, namely, that dialysis patients who are on a transplant waiting list in Northern Ireland are also on the waiting list in the South, but there is no reciprocal agreement. Could a North-South reciprocal agreement be considered as a temporary measure? We live on the same island and it is only right that we provide that service for patients in the North, but let us also look at how patients in the South could be accommodated in all parts of the island in order to receive the best treatment.