Living with Covid-19 Restrictions: Statements (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2020-11-18
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Jerry Buttimer (FG), Labour Panel

I welcome this debate and the Minister of State. I congratulate him on his appointment and elevation to the Department of Health.
I do believe that we need to have a rolling debate on the reopening of our country. The former Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, made a suggestion at the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting last week on the need to have this debate. It is important that the Houses of the Oireachtas have a debate on the reopening of our country, not just living with Covid-19, because, as Senator Currie has eloquently articulated, there are myriad issues that need to be addressed.
Part of our difficulty still remains the body charged with overseeing the HSE contact tracing, now more than ever. I welcome the Government's commitment to hiring more contact tracing personnel. There was a deficit as we headed into the second spike that should never have been allowed to happen. The Government and the HSE knew there was a second spike coming yet we did not recruit enough people for contact tracing.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2020-11-18/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2020-11-18