I am putting it straight. I have learned some things about the Deputy.

I am. I never said those words.

I never said what the Deputy construed I said. I rang you afterwards to make it very clear to you how I regarded the interchange. You cannot do things like that.

If I may say, the issue is that we have 4,500 cases a day. We have expanded the use of antigen testing. The Deputy knows that public health advice has not been very enthusiastic about the wider deployment of antigen testing. Progress has been made. Antigen testing is being used in meat processing plants, nursing homes and third level education and for close contacts. Those tests are being sent out to people. In many ways, we can learn from the UK experience where the wider deployment of antigen testing did not all …

The Deputy is being populist-----

-----in saying the boosters should be given to everybody.

Keep your voice down and calm it down. Cool it.

The bottom line is this: NIAC has advised as to the cohort that should get the booster. Why? Who is in the ICU departments at the moment? Those in the ICU departments are the immunocompromised, the unvaccinated, people with underlying conditions and those in older age cohorts.

Who are most at risk? They include those in older age cohorts, the immunocompromised-----

-----and people with underlying conditions. The advice is that they need the booster before anybody else. We have been through this before. I have heard it suggested in this House that the booster should be given to this group, that group or the next group. It is all popular stuff; it courts the group and it courts the sector but-----

-----the most effective thing we can do is proceed in accordance with the medical advice, public health advice and advice of those who advise on immunisation, which is to give the booster to those who need it most first. I thought we were all in agreement on that. On private hospital capacity, 1,100 to 1,200 beds are already being used on a continuing basis by the HSE in this respect. That figure will grow. That will go up to 2,800 bed days per week. That is where we are right now. It will expand significantly-----

-----under agreements that have already been arrived at and planned for in respect of growing numbers of cases and pressures on the health system.

There is a need, as we emerge from Covid, to restructure the economy. That is why the economic recovery plan and national development plan focus so strongly on the digitalisation and digital transformation that are occurring and will occur here and globally. There is also a focus on the green economy, through significant investments in areas such as public transport and retrofitting, and on the jobs that will be created in the retrofitting sector and a range of others related to the green economy, where thousands o…

In my initial reply, I did not deal with the issue of childcare. As the Deputy knows, we are making very substantial funding available in the budget, and we will do so next year, to ensure the existence of proper income supports for workers in the childcare sector and to create a career pathway. Employers and unions can work in the knowledge that there is a financial envelope to deal with the deliberations of a JLC in respect of childcare. On retrofitting and the grant, as referred to by the Deputy, we have provide…

First, there has been a dramatic expansion of resources for home care hours. I think the Deputy would have to acknowledge that. There were 5 million hours last year in respect of-----

It had a huge impact last year in terms of reducing the number of people waiting for home care packages. There is a critical skills and ineligible occupations list review of sectors of the economy that we need to liberalise in terms of getting work permits and so on. The review has not so far recommended the removal of the occupation of care workers or home carers from the ineligible occupations list. The issue is that we have to work with those who are providing these services in terms of the conditions and improv…

First, 75% of those working in the home care support sector are working part time. As I stated, last year the Minister secured additional funding of €150 million for home support and the HSE national service plan sets a target to provide 24 million hours of home support.

That is throughout 2022. At the end of September, some 15 million home support hours had been provided to more than 53,000 people. There is an enormous programme in place that is being resourced by the Government through the HSE and it has grown significantly beyond previous years. However, that, in turn, has created pressures in terms of availability of people to provide the home supports. For the moment, in terms of employment permits and so on, home care does not satisfy the conditions and the groups reviewing t…

First, the Deputy made a statement that is simply not true in terms of the commission. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and the Government have gone well beyond the recommendations of the commission in respect of the payment scheme. Surely the Deputy has to acknowledge that. Not everybody will be satisfied with the entirety of the scheme but it has gone well beyond the commission. Indeed, the Minister's recommendations, which were accepted by Government, go beyond the recommendations of interdepartmental group as wel…

I am responding to Deputy McDonald. There is an action plan containing 22 actions. From my exchange and engagement with people down through the years, I understand that the most important action is access to information and tracing. We published legislation, which is groundbreaking legislation. No other Government before this Government has produced legislation of this groundbreaking nature.