Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I echo the comments of a number of Senators paying tribute to staff in front-line services, in hospitals, care homes, An Post, the gardaí and carers, who we sometimes forget. They are the people who work with the HSE and go into the homes of elderly people seven days a week. It is important to pay tribute to them for the work that they have done and the care that they have given to so many elderly people. I echo Senator Hoey's comments and mentioned a couple of weeks ago that we have many student nurses who are working in hospitals but are not being paid. I do not think that is fair. Student gardaí are paid when they are doing probationary work, etc., whereas the nurses who have gone into hospitals are not getting paid and are not allowed to work in other settings where they would have been earning money to put themselves through college. That needs to be looked at.

I will address two areas in the health sector that have been affected by Covid, and I think there will be consequences long afterwards. I spoke about it this morning and they are the lack of speech and language therapy and occupational therapy, and services for younger people. I refer to a figure from September, that more than 21,000 people under the age of 17 are waiting for a first occupational therapy assessment. While we understand that Covid has put many services on hold, we were told by the Minister that much work has been done to recruit people into services, to track and trace and to swab, so that those front-line people can get back and assess young children who need assessment. However, we cannot see this on the ground. Occupational therapists and speech and language therapists who are supposed to be dealing with those children have spent the past seven months doing contact tracing in the HSE. How many of them have returned to their positions? I do not think any have. As far as I can see, until this is done, this already serious situation will get worse.

I was at a meeting for the CHO 8 area which I live in, in Longford, Westmeath and Meath. Twelve people were employed when the call went out last September to employ new people so that we could bring the specialists back into the services. Only 12 people were employed but all of them had to be kept tracking and tracing, including the speech and language therapists and occupational therapists. Nobody came back on to the front line to assess those kids that needed it. We will have a serious problem after that. I spoke with numerous parents in my own county, Longford. These are real families and real people. Each number on the waiting list is a child and a family desperately seeking evaluation. I ask that this be addressed immediately.

On the issue of alcohol, I always firmly believed that the pubs should have been open. We have driven alcohol consumption nearly underground. We have not brought in the legislation for minimum pricing for alcohol, and we have cheap drink on sale in off-licences, which have not closed. We have closed our pubs, which are regulated, and now we have underground drinking and parties in houses, which many cases are coming from. If we were in a regulated setting, this would not have happened. That legislation for minimum pricing for alcohol will have to be brought in quickly because I think we will see a serious problem with drink come out of this. We have seen an increase in domestic violence and much of this is attributed to a high use of alcohol available at a cheap price.

An issue that is quite personal to me is visitation to care homes over the past eight months. I have personal knowledge of it. My late mother was in hospital throughout this period and we as a family found it extremely difficult when we could not visit a loved one at any stage. We went for a number of months where we had only one or two visits where we physically saw her. The same thing happened in the nursing home. I compliment its staff on the care that they gave, not just to her but to all the patients. It is extremely difficult for families. Many families have suffered greatly because of that. We are extremely grateful to the home where my mother was that we got in in the past couple of weeks before she passed away, with a concession from the HSE, but many families were not able to get that. The effect that it has on the person who is sick and also on their family needs to be looked at.

Many issues will have to be dealt with post Covid and I look forward to working with the Minister of State. I ask that when this is all over in 12 months or whenever it is, that we look back, develop a plan, learn from the mistakes that we have made and make sure that we have a plan in place in case something like this ever happens again.