Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I join Senator Craughwell in giving some credit to our Leader. In her previous role as Minister with responsibility for social protection, she did great work on school meals. This has been built on by the current Minister, Deputy Humphreys, with the announcement yesterday of an extension of free school meals. That has to be very much welcomed. We need to go a lot further in the provision of free school meals. Every DEIS school in the country should receive free school meals. We need to aspire and work towards this as quickly as possible.

I was very troubled to read the contents of the Women's Aid report yesterday with regard to the increase of 40% in calls to its service during the pandemic as a result of domestic violence. This is a further very tragic consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Work needs to be done after Covid on how to reduce these figures. I have said previously that we need to reconstitute the very good committee we had that looked at public interest issues. The Cathaoirleach did great work on the committee with regard to sign language. We need to reconstitute the Seanad Public Consultation Committee and I propose that the first work the committee would do is a report on domestic violence.

Long Covid is becoming a big problem and we need a strategy for dealing with it.We need a strategy on long Covid. Many people who get Covid are asymptomatic. Some end up being sick, but most get over it. There are a growing number of people who are sadly not getting over Covid. I have spoken to a number of people recently who are in great distress and suffering a huge amount as a result of long Covid. We need a debate in the House on the issue of long Covid. It would be nice if we could organise it before the summer recess. If not, it needs to be organised in early September because we need a strategy which needs funding. We need clear targets in terms of that. There are people whose sense of smell has not returned and are suffering chronic fatigue and have little, if any, energy. The support structures and services are not there to assist them. We have a body of work to do on that. We need that debate in this House.