Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is becoming a regular visitor to Seanad Éireann. If she keeps arriving with the good news that we got this morning, she will be a very welcome one. I listened as she outlined the ambitious winter plan. As the Acting Chairman knows, we have debated winter plans down the years where there was not a significant spend. However, the mindset around healthcare has been recalibrated so that healthcare is not at the top of our political priorities.

This time last year, we were discussing Brexit, which was the largest political challenge in our country's recent history. While it remains a major political challenge, it is fair to say that all observers and commentators now realise that health is our single greatest political challenge. We will not have a vibrant economic future unless we and our people are healthy. Health and our economy are intrinsically linked - they are two sides of the one coin and deserve the same commitment in terms of resources, priority, effort and determination. Since January, we have seen how our country and our people respond "when our backs are to the wall".

Currently, we are dealing with a worldwide pandemic that has infected nearly 39,000 of our citizens. On the island of Ireland, more than 2,000 people have, sadly, lost their lives. Any winter plan has to reflect that backdrop, and this one does. We are discussing spending hundreds of millions of euro in this winter plan and making beds available in accident and emergency units. In the mid-west, an extra 60 beds will be opened on 9 November for patient treatment. These are new beds and their opening is welcome. I am not 100% sure whether it was a year ago today, yesterday or tomorrow, but 93 people were on trolleys in University Hospital Limerick, UHL. The 60 beds will make a major difference when they open. That is just one element of the winter plan, but it is a key component.

Colleagues have alluded to other issues. For example, the Minister of State is aware of mental health issues from her work in the previous Dáil. I agree with Senator Higgins that the Minister of State's work was genuine, determined and focused. In politics, it is great to see someone with that determination getting the opportunity to execute it from a position of authority. I do not doubt that, if the Government lasts the four and a half years, the Minister of State will be able to turn around and point to significant achievements in the fields of older people and mental health. We wish her well and will stand in solidarity with her in her efforts to achieve those.

The winter plan is appropriate and proportionate. It has to be welcomed, but it also has to be implemented. I look forward to standing in the Chamber in six months' time to review how the winter plan worked and the impact I hope it will have had.

I will conclude by referring again to the pandemic. As Oireachtas Members, we all have a responsibility to use our social media platforms to keep hammering home the message. We are in level 3 and the situation is not easy. There are people who this morning were told they would not have jobs until such time as we moved back to level 2. We have a collective duty as leaders in our communities and society to encourage everyone to reboot his or her efforts. I appeal to business people to do the simple things like keeping their hand sanitisers topped up. The number of hand sanitisers one finds empty when going into buildings is amazing. Regardless of whether we like it, complacency has sadly set in. People became fatigued, but we must reboot and recalibrate now. The only way that the Minister of State's winter plan can be successful is if we can break the coronavirus chain and reduce the number of people getting infected.With that, I wish the Minister of State well.