Can I make a point of clarification?

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I make the point to the Taoiseach that this surely was known last week, when we signed off on this. I am aware that the officials from the Covid-19 committee had been in contact with the HSE, the Minister, the CMO and NPHET. We only received notice today.

Last week.

I presume last Wednesday or Thursday.

Even Friday evening would have been okay. We only received notice today. That is unacceptable. That is not even the main point. We have been calling for two weeks now for a debate on the Government’s plan and we have not had one. The Covid-19 committee-----

It is the same matter.

The Covid-19 committee was the only opportunity that we in the Opposition have had to have any discussion with the Minister for Health, the HSE or with NPHET on that plan and on other issues. It is unacceptable to be told today before the committee is due to sit that they cannot come in and that we will reschedule for next week. It is unacceptable and is a slap in the face for the Opposition.

The second Government Deputy from Waterford.

I think we made it very clear.

The Taoiseach is being disingenuous when he will not provide debate. He is blustering now.

It is not agreed because we had sought a debate on the Taoiseach's plan but he still has not given it.

Let us have it then.

It was about the communication. Nobody questioned-----

The Deputy is not being honest and truthful.

Deputy Healy-Rae is misrepresenting what people said.

I fully accept the Ceann Comhairle's explanation-----

The issues that were raised by Deputies are reasonable. Deputy Kelly raised the question of how the decision was communicated to the Ceann Comhairle but the bigger concern for me was the fact that the first I learned of the Dáil being recalled this evening was on the six o'clock news when the Taoiseach spoke about it. Political correspondents seem to have more information than we did. My colleague raised a legitimate point because there was no communication with him as a whip. That is the point and that is not good…

My question relates to the very serious challenge that acute hospitals in our health service will face over the next number of months. We have been hearing for some time from the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, that he will produce a winter plan. By the way, I want to wish him well and I very much hope that a negative result comes back. He has said that he will produce a winter plan. This is not just about a winter plan but also about Covid, non-Covid and catch-up care and a plan that enables us to do…

I am very conscious of the most vulnerable people and I am very conscious they are people we have to protect over the next weeks and months. It is not good enough that the HSE is only finalising a plan. We have an unprecedented crisis facing us. Although we thought we saw chaos over recent weeks and months, unless this Government gets its act together, unless a real, aggressive, robust plan is put in place to deal with the challenges facing our healthcare services in the next while, and unless that plan is as robus…

The Minister of State gives me a figure of €600 million and no detail of what that will mean. I published a plan in the first week of August and we set out what is necessary. The last figures we got from the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, showed 610,000 people - record numbers - waiting to see a consultant. They showed that inpatient and outpatient waiting times were up and that, across all of the specialties, people are waiting longer. However, there is no sense of urgency from this Government and no idea…