Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to welcome the one-off €1,000 bonus payment to healthcare workers. It is a good initiative. It is better, more efficient and more impactful than giving days off.

I want to raise three distinct issues. First, as hospital admissions and ICU cases plateau, thank God, we have a new crisis looming. We now have a long waiting list for elective surgery, for various procedures and indeed for diagnoses. We need a special emergency plan that harnesses the public and private sectors to deal with these waiting lists and to get them sorted. I want the Leader to invite the Minister for Health to the Seanad to outline a proposed response to this. This needs urgent address.

Second, before Christmas I raised with the Leader the waiting list for child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS. I ask the Leader for an update on that. I do not have to tell the Leader, who is a particularly compassionate individual, that this is a real crisis that needs to be dealt with.

Finally, I join my friend and colleague, Senator Wall, in calling for priority for the gambling regulation Bill and for a well-resourced regulator. The Leader constantly acknowledges the fact that right through this Seanad, from day one, I have been raising this issue. It would be wrong not to salute the commitment to this project of the Minister of State, Deputy James Browne. He has taken it and is running with it. It should happen. I ask the Leader to address those issues in her response.