Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. Many of us saw this day when we would need to have extra restrictions coming. I remember saying here that it would be a nightmare to have to come back here and do all that again, but here we are. I suppose that is the nature of the pandemic. I hope we are operating as though this is the last time it is going to happen. We can hope it is the last time but we must plan as though it is not.

We need a strategy and antigen testing that works. The Taoiseach told my colleague Deputy Duncan Smith that he saw a role for regular antigen testing in households as a key measure in 2022 to suppress the virus. A couple of days later, the Minister for Health said the Government would not subsidise the tests and would let the market deal with the price. There has been a lot of discussion on this but I am firmly of the belief that antigen tests are not affordable to people on low incomes or social welfare payments. Antigen tests only work if they are done regularly. Science has been clear about that from the start. Therefore I appeal again that they be subsidised or made more accessible. We should not allow the market to decide about something as serious as antigen testing kits, which we now recognise as a key tool to tackle this pandemic.

Last week, my colleague Deputy Duncan Smith, who is our health spokesperson, received a reply to a parliamentary question on the staffing of vaccination centres. During the summer the vaccine roll-out was firing on all cylinders but I understand that many of those workers have gone back into primary care, back to college, back into retirement or into PCR testing and swabbing. Does the Minister believe we have enough people working on the booster programme? Is he confident we have the staffing level to get us to where we need to be? We are in an emergency situation once again so I hope we have a booster programme that is firing on all cylinders.

Following the new restrictions announced last week, I want to mention the arts community, performers, taxi drivers and the pantomimes which are coming up. That is a sector that has been badly hit, as many sectors have been. There is an announcement today on the EWSS. It is really important that we do not wind down supports while we reintroduce restrictions that could potentially mean people lose their jobs and incomes. It is vital that we protect vulnerable workers, including workers who often have irregular work at the best of times and can struggle, particularly now that we are back in the worst of times and they are in need of those supports.

I wanted to mention the question of a long-term strategy around the Covid pandemic. Unfortunately we are back in a difficult situation with Omicron. There is something of a panic situation. We are thinking about what December and January might look like. Infections are plateauing at levels which are very high. For a couple of weeks, we discussed the pressures on ICUs and hospitals. That was very much a feature in the media but we have moved on a little to talking about PCR and HEPA filters.

It is important we remember, as I am sure we all do, that the pressures on our hospitals are ongoing and are possibly worse. I appeal to the people for whom the restrictions might be difficult to follow to think about being inside those hospitals and how bad it is. We can remind ourselves of how shocked we were when we saw the "RTÉ Investigates" documentary, which showed how bad things were. Some people may have forgotten that front-line workers are still working night and day against this pandemic. I hate the phrase, but I feel like we may have lost the dressing room. People are frustrated. Last Christmas, the vaccine was on the horizon and it seemed like we were on our way out of this. Now we are facing another Christmas. I think people are just sad and frustrated. We want to see an end to the pandemic but we also want to see every tool used by the Government. We do not want to see two-day delays in PCR testing. We need everyone to have access to antigen testing. There has to be good quality air in our schools. HEPA filters will play a role in that but they are not a silver bullet. The public is very pragmatic. No one wants to see anyone die or our hospitals under pressure. As difficult as the restrictions are, the public can understand them. It is sometimes our role to have to go out and explain those restrictions. The public might be more on our side if they thought these restrictions were being made in the context of a framework of long-term planning for improving our health service, resourcing our doctors, nurses, health care assistants and hospital staff, and pandemic proofing. We have spoken about hospitals not being able to deal with things because of backlogs. That will be a challenge for the Government. However, if people feel that everything is being done in every way to support our healthcare system, they might not be so frustrated.

I will, as always, mention the student nurses and midwives. They have been working from September until now. The Minister spoke about the reintroduction of that payment. There is no answer on that yet.