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Cabinet Committees

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 February 2022

Tuesday, 1 February 2022

Questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Jennifer Murnane O'Connor

Question:

1. Deputy Jennifer Murnane O'Connor asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 will meet next. [61982/21]

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Niamh Smyth

Question:

2. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 will meet next. [61983/21]

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Aindrias Moynihan

Question:

3. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 is due to meet next. [61985/21]

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Alan Kelly

Question:

4. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 last met and next plans to meet. [3312/22]

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Mary Lou McDonald

Question:

5. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the Cabinet committee on Covid-19. [4365/22]

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Mick Barry

Question:

6. Deputy Mick Barry asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet Committee on Covid-19 will next meet. [4631/22]

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Richard Boyd Barrett

Question:

7. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 will meet next. [4698/22]

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Paul Murphy

Question:

8. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach when the Cabinet committee on Covid-19 will meet next. [4701/22]

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Oral answers (8 contributions)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 8, inclusive, together.

The Cabinet committee on Covid-19 met most recently on 17 December. The date of the next meeting has not been set.

Following public health advice, the Government agreed that from 22 January, most of the public health measures that were in place could be removed, including guidance in relation to household visiting; early closing time for hospitality and events; capacity restrictions for outdoor events, including sporting fixtures; capacity restrictions for indoor events, including weddings; formal requirements for physical distancing, in general 2 m; use of pods for indoor activities; sectoral protective measures in hospitality, including physical distancing; restrictions on nightclubs; and requirements to have a valid digital Covid certificate to enter various premises.

A return to physical attendance in workplaces on a phased basis, as appropriate to each sector, commenced on 24 January. To support the transition back to physical attendance in the workplace and the continued safe operation of workplaces, a transitional protocol has been prepared. It draws on lessons learned to date, along with the latest public health guidance. It follows discussion and agreement at the Labour Employer Economic Forum.

A number of public health measures will remain in place until 28 February 2022, including requirements for mask wearing in all settings for which this is currently regulated and protective measures in schools and early learning and care facilities.

There remains a need for ongoing close monitoring of the virus. The pandemic is not over and the emergence of new variants with increased levels of transmissibility, immune escape and-or virulence remains a risk both nationally and globally, particularly in the context of continued high levels of infection and variance in vaccine supply and uptake globally.

We will need to continue to monitor the ongoing risk from the disease and take steps individually and collectively in our everyday lives to keep this risk under control. This includes continuing to follow the current advice for those with symptoms, cases and close contacts and continued focus on maximising the uptake of the primary and booster vaccination. To this end, I encourage those who have not yet received their booster vaccine to avail of one of the many options available through the vaccination centres, pharmacies or GPs.

While I welcome the restrictions lifted last week, I have concerns about how people with medical cards are being looked after. I have been contacted by people with medical cards who were denied dental appointments. I sat with one elderly gentleman in my office last week and we went through a list of dentists together. We finally finding one in Carlow who sees patients under the General Medical Services, GMS, Contract. This is unacceptable.

Are there fees for Covid consultations with GPs? I have had a few phone calls about that issue. Now that society has reopened, it is important that people who want to see their GP about non-Covid-related illnesses can see them and are not waiting a long time for appointments. I acknowledge doctors' surgeries are doing their best. People who are waiting on hospital appointments, also non-Covid related, must get them as soon as possible.

A public health reform expert advisory group has been set up by the Minister. It has 30 members and is chaired by Professor Hugh Brady, a former president of UCD. Will there be any formal review by the Government and has any model been decided on?

During Covid - we are still in Covid but during the really bad times - we had to make certain allowances in relation to hospitals. I want to raise the issue of University Hospital Limerick, UHL. Colleagues across politics have raised this matter. UHL is my local hospital. There are record numbers of people on trolleys in the hospital. Last week, it was 97, on Wednesday it was 111 and the figure for the whole month of January was 1,300. The overcrowding is 132% higher than it was last year. There is a systemic issue here. I have been fighting on this issue for a decade. The hospital is not big enough. There will have to be a change in pathways for the use of Nenagh, Ennis and St. John's hospitals. We have to do something because the management and staff at UHL cannot do any more. The hospital is too small for the population in the area.

When the Government is selecting an elective hospital for the future, the first base should be in the mid-west. Whether on the grounds of one of the current hospitals or with one of these hospitals, it should be in the mid-west because that is where the biggest crisis is. That is a long-term solution. In the short term, we need a change in pathways and also €41 million more in funding to bring UHL up to the required service of a model 4 hospital.

Last September, the Taoiseach said that an evaluation of the State's Covid's response would begin early this year to consider how the country performed for the purposes of learning lessons to be applied in the future. Instead, what has transpired is the establishment of an expert advisory group whose scope is limited to the public health service. It is my strong view that there is a need for a public inquiry that is time-bound to consider all aspects of Government decision-making because there was no element of public service provision that did not face decisions it would not ordinarily have to make, while having to adapt services to an unprecedented changing environment.

A public inquiry is, in my view, the only mechanism by which the experiences of civic society and the outcomes of political and public policy decisions can be thoroughly explored and evaluated. This process does not have to be drawn out or adversarial but it must be independent, fit for purpose and human rights compliant. There will be hard questions for Government. The Taoiseach was a member of multiple Cabinets that presided over a deeply fragmented public health service. Nursing homes, critical care, domestic violence services, disability and dementia services, mental health and addiction care were all casualties of an historically under-resourced public system. In the absence of a public inquiry, how can the Taoiseach's commitment to a full evaluation of the State's response to Covid be delivered on?

We have to also acknowledge that Covid-19 remains with us and the need for robust and resourced testing, tracing and vaccination programmes remain. We need clarity from the Taoiseach on what that will look like into the future.

The Covid crisis has opened up a debate about remote working. When workers won the right to join a union, they did not win the right to request their employer to consider allowing a union. When women won the right to vote, they did not win the right to request the Government of the day to consider allowing them a vote. The Government seems to have a problem with understanding the concept of workers' rights. Coming from the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, that does not surprise me - the man is a down-the-line Tory. However, the Taoiseach proclaims his working-class roots. He was at it here in the Dáil last week. He projects himself as a believer in workers' rights but when it comes to remote working, a key issue for workers concerned with work-life balance, long commutes, pricey petrol and so on, there is not a scintilla of difference between him and the Tánaiste. The Taoiseach is not supporting workers' rights here. He is supporting a miserable right to request. Why is that?

On a similar issue of rewarding workers who played a critical role during Covid, obviously we all accept and welcome the announcement that front-line workers are to get a pandemic bonus, although it should be extended to carers, as has been discussed. There is no doubt that group were on the front line of the Covid response. What does the Taoiseach have to say, if he is not willing to extend that bonus to them, to groups such as retail workers and those who worked in supermarkets? They are traditionally low paid but they kept food on the table during the Covid pandemic. Without them, we would not have got through the pandemic. They are very low paid, and I might add to that private security workers. They work in many of those places, also worked all through the pandemic and are incredibly low paid. What is the Government going to give in terms of a pandemic bonus and reward, long term, to those groups of workers? Does the Taoiseach agree they deserve something like what the Dunnes Stores workers have won, namely, a 10% pay increase, or that the minimum wage would be increased dramatically to something like €15 an hour, as against the abysmally low level of pays these workers currently suffer? If we are serious about respecting the role they played, what long-term dividends is the Government going to give them in the aftermath of Covid?

Yesterday, the Department of Foreign Affairs published its internal review of what it calls workplace arrangements in Iveagh House, a euphemism for champagne-gate on 17 June. This was a time when many people were not able to attend funerals of loved ones and thousands of people received fines for either organising or attending social gatherings in breach of the regulations in place at the time, and this report is a whitewash from start to finish. The narrative is the idea of it being an impromptu event, but the review cannot therefore explain why at least two members of staff were present at the social event who were not scheduled to come to work that day.

Most glaring, it is a whitewash for the Minister responsible, namely, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney. The review did not even question or interview him about, for example, what he experienced when he went there. He was there about one hour and a half after the champagne corks had been popped, when clearly a social event of sorts was still continuing. As for what he did about it, he clearly did nothing. He was not interviewed in his capacity as the Minister responsible, with whom, ultimately, the buck has to stop.

Has the Taoiseach spoken to the Minister about why he deleted at least one text message from his phone - this is not the first time we have heard of that - about this party? Most important, will the Taoiseach please agree the Minister needs to come before the Dáil and answer questions about this, or is he going to collude in a cover-up?

I thank the Deputies for the range of questions. Deputy Murnane O'Connor raised pertinent issues about getting access to dentists, GPs and acute hospital services, as well as getting access to GPs more generally in respect of non-Covid illnesses. Obviously, Covid has had an impact on our health services, as did the cyberattack last year. In respect of dentists, I have made the point that contractual discussions are ongoing with the Irish Dental Association regarding fees and so forth, and additional funding has been provided in that regard.

I again pay tribute to the work of GPs during the pandemic on a range of fronts. Our health service stood the test throughout the pandemic despite what has been said, relatively speaking and compared with other countries in terms of mortality figures and the degree to which our ICUs held up notwithstanding significant pressures. We need to thank those involved. GPs in particular, through the booster campaign before Christmas and working with pharmacies, led a very important campaign to reduce the impact of Omicron, particularly in terms of hospital and ICU admissions, deaths and severe illness. People can take things like that for granted in the aftermath, but it was a very effective and well-run booster campaign that had a huge impact.

I get the point that we need now to open access because one of our big concerns relates to delayed diagnosis across a range of illnesses. That is a huge concern and we have to be alert. There will have to be intensive resourcing in the next 12 months to deal with this undoubted legacy from Covid, be it in cancer care, heart disease or a range of other areas where normal diagnostics or regular screening did not take place. I have some concerns about that and we will need to keep a close focus on it.

To respond to Deputy Kelly, we need to have a look at what is happening in the mid-west, where there has been an historical underprovision of beds. I support the idea of an elective facility but, under Sláintecare, that proposal has not emerged in respect of the mid-west. What has come back to us relates to elective facilities for Galway, Cork and Dublin, but I am open to the idea of an elective facility for the mid-west. I think an elective-only facility is the way to go and the health service needs to move more quickly than it normally does. It does not have to be a long-term provision but should rather be a short to medium-term one. Ideally, it should be on health ground lands to fast-track it.

Turning to Deputy McDonald, we need an evaluation and it is important that it be comprehensive in respect of everything that took place, with a view to learning lessons. In my view, it has to be about learning lessons. We do not want future public health officials or public servants to be hamstrung or looking over their shoulders if there is a new crisis, conscious that another inquiry may be conducted into what they are doing in the middle of that crisis. In the middle of a crisis, we need speed, we need people to make decisions and we need people to have courage to make decisions, and not to cover their back all the time or do box-ticking exercises. All international responses to crises have this as a basic standard, whereby we look back to evaluate, learn and ensure those lessons are applied to future pandemics and crises. That should be the spirit of the approach and the Government will have to work on what the best model will be. Prior to Christmas and throughout the Christmas period, we were very focused on vaccination. Once that evaluation and inquiry is in train, it takes all the senior front-line people out of working on the pandemic, and all hands were on deck for Omicron during that period. We will come back to the House with proposals. The public health reform expert advisory group is there to focus and identify learnings from the public health components of the response to Covid-19. It is important that we have a strong and robust embedded public health system into the future.

Deputies Boyd Barrett and Barry asked questions in respect of workers. Throughout the pandemic, we have been very strong in supporting workers, be that through the pandemic unemployment payment, the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, or the Covid restrictions support scheme, CRSS. We have provided a range of measures to support the economy and underpin employment. The best outcomes for workers relate to access to a job and the ability to get back to normal as quickly as we can. As was commented on earlier in the House, there is also the recognition payment, primarily for front-line healthcare workers.

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