I commend the Regional Group and Deputy Naughten for his continued work on long Covid. We are three years into this pandemic. The world did not know the term "Covid-19" until three years ago. Since then, this virus has claimed millions of lives, affected hundreds of millions of people and caused economic chaos across the world. Many of us who got Covid-19 have recovered fully, thankfully. A vaccine has been developed which has been hugely helpful in the fight against the pandemic. A whole cohort of people who got C…

I welcome this good motion on home care. It is a good critique of where we are at the moment. There is no argument, here or outside here, but that older people are better off being cared for at home. I have experienced that as a care worker myself and in the past six or seven months of my mother's life when she was cared for at home. Home is where our parents want to be. It is where they grew up, where their family and friends are and it is the best environment, sometimes, for end-of-life care. Sometimes it is not …

There is something extremely dysfunctional about housing supply and policy in this country. The policy can be traced back decades. It is one of commodification of shelter. That is the heart of this debate about the crisis of homelessness. Corporate bodies saw that ideology and they saw bricks and mortar as something to invest and speculate in and get very rich on. They did this not only in Ireland but across the world. Politically, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil bought into that ideology as well. Big developers bought i…

Two years ago today this House voted by 81 votes to 71 votes to progress the Dying with Dignity Bill. Since then, progress on the issue has stalled. I believe this is a derogation of this substantial issue. It is imperative that the recommendation made by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice to establish a special Oireachtas committee to examine the issue is constituted as soon as possible. It is important. The indication is that the Irish public would support a change in the law around assisted dying. When wi…

The Department of Health announced six specialist menopause clinics in recent weeks. This is very welcome in standardising women's health in Ireland. There is an issue with staffing but it is to be hoped that can be overcome. The issue I have been contacted about by a number of women in my constituency is in regard to the price. If a person does not have a medical card, he or she will have to pay an initial charge of €150 and €75 thereafter. We have been speaking about universal healthcare and about Sláintecare. Pe…

In the Government's lifetime, will it conduct a review of all Covid deaths in nursing homes during the pandemic, in particular during the first 14 to 15 months? More than 53% of all deaths took place in that environment. I would like a public inquiry into this matter.

We all agree that fundamental mistakes were made during this period. What happened in the pandemic was unprecedented in Ireland and across the world. We had never seen it before in our lifetime. What the relatives want and deserve to know is what happened to their family members in their final weeks or days. I just cannot comprehend a situation in which one's mother or father is in a nursing home and there is no access for loved ones. There was panic in some instances. That situation warrants a robust inquiry or wh…

I agree with the Minister that we do not want a dragged out process where, at the end of the day, it is the barristers and solicitors who are enriched. The special Oireachtas committee on this issue recommended that a public inquiry take place. That committee had a lot of respect and was thorough in its investigation of events, particularly in the first 14 months. The other question that has to be answered concerns the composition of nursing homes in Ireland. Twenty years ago, they were 80% public but that is now r…

A number of parents are listening to this debate. What they will want to know is when their children will get access to the drug Kaftrio. There are 35 children being denied a drug that is hugely beneficial to treat their cystic fibrosis, CF. They will be asking questions of the HSE and the manufacturer, Vertex. A resolution has to be found immediately. It is unbelievable that others living with CF have access to this drug. It is hugely beneficial. Even in Europe, the vast majority of people living with cystic fibro…

I do not blame the Minister of State, but if I was a parent of a child listening to this, I would believe the fault lies with the manufacturer, Vertex. That is not disputable. It is also not disputable that Vertex is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, so much so that I looked up its listings on how much it makes per year. To say it is eye-watering is an understatement. It has a stock valuation of $70 billion. Its turnover two years ago just for the drug Kaftrio was $5.7 billion. Two years ago, it made a profit of $…

I have just come from a very lively protest at Liffey Valley Shopping Centre. This protest was called by shop workers who are protesting against the imposition of car-parking charges for staff. These charges will be up to €600 per year. The staff feel aggrieved about this, given all of their hours and years of hard work at the shopping centre. To add insult to injury, yesterday Liffey Valley Shopping Centre announced that customers will be free for one month if they register their details, yet the staff who make al…

Yes, there are.

Perhaps the Taoiseach could have a word.

There is a very real threat to the health system in the coming months. The possibility of twindemic between Covid and flu has the potential to overwhelm emergency departments and hospitals. At the moment, there are 500 people on trolleys in emergency departments, including a number of family members of mine whose experience was criminal - criminal that people who have worked all their lives are treated that way. People in the HSE should be in prison for the treatment of some of the people who are seen in emergency …

These are people who were waiting three days for a bed.

It is absolutely laughable.

I again raise the issue of the Covid-19 pandemic recognition payment. There was much fanfare about this payment and we all supported it but many workers have not received it. They include many care assistants who work in the private sector. They were outside the Department of Health today and issued 1,700 individual letters to that Department on the non-payment of this. It is shambolic. Deputies get €1,000 because of the budget and front-line workers who were protecting our mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters st…

Care assistants, front-line workers. Everybody was clapping them six months or a year ago and now they get nothing.

It is shambolic.

This Government and previous Governments have failed to grasp the winds of change in drug reform. When other states are changing course, I would argue that this State has stagnated in drug reform. In the past 20 years 10,000 people in this State have died of drug-related deaths, which is an incredible statistic. That is 500 people every year in the State. I would argue that if these people had different postal addresses and codes, the response from this Government and previous Governments would have been very diffe…