Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Craughwell for those words. I am sure they are deeply felt.

I want to raise an issue raised by fellow Members of the House in recent sittings and in light of a recent CSO report, that is, the social impact Covid is having on our society. As a public representative, I have noticed an alarming rise in the number of people seeking support and I have also been approached by many people worried about family members and friends who are unsure of where to turn for help. The recent CSO survey referred to was released a number of days ago and has confirmed some of what I and other public representatives are seeing up and down the country. The percentage of people feeling depressed or downhearted has more than doubled in the past seven months, from 5.5% in April to 11.5% in November. The percentage of people who felt alone all or most of the time has more than doubled, from 6.8% in April to 13.7% in November this year. However, this is not felt equally across our society. For example, females are far more likely, at 17% compared with males at 9.9%, to be feeling lonely all or most of the time. While more than one in four of our young people in the age bracket of 18 to 34 also feel the burden of this loneliness. With numbers doubling so quickly, many people who never had to access support now find themselves dealing with a system that was struggling and overstretched before this pandemic happened. We must act now and make support for these people readily available and reach out to help all who need it.

We must also make extra funds available to organisations that now find themselves on the front line of this new crisis. We know failure to do so has had devastating consequences for so many in our communities. We must also invest in local sports, arts groups and youth clubs, which engage with so many and provide an essential outlet in communities. We know making human connections is a key part of well-being. We must move away from judging the success of our nation solely on GDP or how many multinationals we can attract to set up operations here. Success for our country should be making Ireland a great place to make a living and making it a great place to live.

Recently, we welcomed the news that a vaccine is coming closer to reality but the legacy of the pandemic may prove much more troublesome to cure and leave a lasting impact on our communities for many years to come. Now is the time to reset our priorities as a nation and put people first. Other countries have already started this process and now we must follow. I ask the House to support the online campaign for the State to pay the €100 registration fee for nurses and midwives. The letters regarding their annual registration to the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland arrived yesterday, as I am sure we are all aware. Given the incredible and unselfish work our nurses and midwives carried out on the front line over recent months, the Government paying this registration would be a very important acknowledgement of this work and how important our nurses and midwives are to us all.