I move: That Dáil Éireann: notes: — that, on average, 45,753 cancers or related tumours were diagnosed each year during 2018-2020; — that there are currently approximately 200,000 cancer patients or former cancer patients alive in Ireland; — that inpatient charges are incurred by cancer patients without a medical card or private health insurance at a cost of €80 per visit, or up to €800 per year; — that most courses of chemotherapy and radiotherapy require more than ten visits a year, meaning most patients will pay…

I note that we are having yet another health debate and the Minister for Health is not present. This has been the case for the past week when there have been a number of different health debates. It is really not acceptable that he is not here doing his job as Minister. We have had the breaking scandal of child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, in south Kerry and serious concerns about the standard of CAMHS services throughout the country. He is not around for any of that and nor is his Secretary Genera…

I commend Deputy Ward on bringing this motion to the House. It is comprehensive, detailed and timely and I urge the Government to support it if it has not already indicated its position. Having listened to the Minister of State's contribution a short while ago, a couple of issues arise. I will pick up on the final point made by Deputy Duncan Smith about the Minister of State's call for a national director for mental health. It is scandalous that there is not a national director for mental health. The Minister of St…

The report into the south Kerry child and adolescent mental health service, CAMHS, is truly shocking. It is very distressing for all of the families concerned. These parents did the right thing and went to south Kerry CAMHS to get professional help for their children. Some waited up to two years to access that service. Instead of helping their children, the service actually harmed them. The treatment of 227 children by a junior doctor, who is not named in the report although he has been named in the media, was deem…

Some of the 35 recommendations included in the report raise fundamental questions about whether the service is actually hopelessly deficient. The whistleblower here, Dr. Ankur Sharma, was a locum consultant psychiatrist appointed in 2020. He has now resigned from the HSE because he said he received no support and was sidelined after he blew the whistle. Again, serious questions are being raised in our State agencies about the treatment of whistleblowers. This of course raises very serious questions for senior manag…

What about the whistleblower?

How many?

Will the Taoiseach tell us how many?

From almost two years, our lives have been on pause. We have all been in a kind of limbo and it has been exceptionally difficult. However, for children and young people, this pause has had an especially profound effect. While milestones were missed and the freedom to play and socialise was severely curbed, the crisis in youth mental health accelerated. In fact, it is now at a serious crisis point. Last year, almost 12,000 children and teenagers were referred again or were newly referred to CAMHS community teams. So…

At the outset I commend Deputies Joan Collins and Pringle on bringing forward this motion. It is a very good and timely motion because we have been waiting many years for movement on a new national maternity hospital. This was first announced in 2013 and there have been three Ministers for Health since. Issues started to arise in 2016 and I have lost count of the number of parliamentary questions I have asked and the number of Dáil debates that have taken place on this. Every time a parliamentary question is put in…

On a point of order, given that the Minister is leaving the Chamber, is anybody representing the Department of Education?

It is an important point. There are education spokespersons present. The debate is supposed to include education.

It is disgraceful.

I wish to share time with Deputy Gary Cannon.

It is no surprise that the rate of Omicron has doubled in the last two days, meaning it will become the dominant variant by the weekend. There is a real urgency about getting the boosters out. On Tuesday, I called for the age restrictions to be lifted for boosters. It seemed like that was going to be done yesterday. An announcement was made that there would be no age restrictions applying to GPs and to pharmacists, which was a very welcome development. Unfortunately, that was not the case and pharmacists have been …

They have not been told that formally.

Okay. They are currently dealing with complaints from the public about the news that went out. There is a need for clarification on this. There is no justification for making a distinction between what GPs can do and what pharmacists can do. This needs to be addressed urgently. These are, of course, the Johnson & Johnson people in the main, who are now highly susceptible because of the waning immunity. The second issue I want to raise, and which I want the Minister of State to bring to the attention of the Minister…

Omicron already comprises 11% of cases in this country, as the Taoiseach knows. It will likely be the dominant strain by early next week. Therefore, we need a steely resolve and an absolute focus on ramping up the booster campaign. This is not to denigrate in any way the work that has been done to date. There has been a lot of very good work but at this stage there is a need for an increased national effort to ramp up the booster campaign in every way possible. At the height of the vaccine programme 400,000 doses w…

The Taoiseach did not address the issue of removing the age restrictions. It is a really important issue. I spoke today to a GP who told me that when a patient comes into his surgery for something else, he will ask if the patient has received a booster. He is quite happy to provide it and that can be done quickly, but if the person is not over the age of 50 or within the recognised cohorts, he cannot administer the booster. Equally with pharmacists, if people are coming into their pharmacies, there are opportunitie…

It is a constraint.