Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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Liam Quaide (SD), Cork East

It is not clear how the Department of Social Protection decided that long Covid is not worthy of classification as an occupational injury for healthcare workers who had been in receipt of special Covid leave with pay until 31 December and how the Department of Health informed that decision. A group of these workers met the Taoiseach in Cork in June. As I have said here before, they felt he gave them a lot of time, showed genuine empathy and concern for their situation and, critically, that he validated the seriousness of their symptoms and the fact that they had contracted Covid in the workplace yet nothing has been done for them since. They are now on standard sick leave which will run out in three months and ultimately they are on a pathway to retirement on medical grounds.
It is difficult to do justice to the stress, worry and sense of betrayal that this has caused them. The health committee wrote to the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, before Christmas asking that she extend special Covid leave with pay for six months to give time for proper consideration by the Department of Social Protection of long Covid as an occupational injury. I am urging the Taoiseach to intervene between those two Departments on this issue.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13