The task force is focused on women's health and building capacity in the system for women's health, including mental health, but is not working specifically in response to Covid, for which the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, is leading a lot of initiatives. There was funding in parallel with the winter plan and a wellness initiative was launched last week. There has been a huge increase in calls and in texts to the support lines. We do not have very up-to-date data, but the figures we have for suicide and self-ha…

I propose to take Questions Nos. 89, 97, 117 and 121 together. In my earlier response to Deputy Cullinane, I dealt with some of the issues raised by the Deputies, and I would now like to deal with the additional matters. Concerning fourth year nursing and midwifery students, the HSE continues to fund the internship employment of those students who are on rostered work placements. This includes those scheduled to commence in the coming weeks and those due to commence rostered work placements in 2021. These fourth ye…

I thank the Deputies for their contributions. To pick up on the wider point, Deputy Boyd Barrett is absolutely right that nurses, midwives and HCAs throughout the system are doing extraordinary work. We often, rightly, talk about the amazing work teachers have done to make our schools safe places for children to be. There is not enough talk about the equivalent work nurses and midwives are doing to make hospitals safe places for patients. The Deputy is right that there have been a lot of Covid cases among healthcar…

I assure the Deputies that I hear what they are saying. We all recognise the work of our qualified nursing and midwifery professionals throughout the country, in community healthcare and in the hospital system. Do students nurses make a valuable contribution while they are on their educational placements? Damn right they do and they work extremely hard. Those students are part of a clinical group whose members are funded for their educational placements. Are we looking at increasing that funding in a time of Covid?…

I have not forgotten the offer the Deputy made previously and which he undertook to make good if we get the numbers to 10,000 by the end of the winter plan.

I thank the Deputy. The winter plan was launched by the HSE on 24 September. It targets approximately 12,522 additional posts over the period of the plan, to the end of April next year. Budget 2021 provides for the retention of these posts on a permanent basis, plus an additional 3,426 whole-time equivalent posts, funding a total increase of approximately 15,738 positions. To date in 2020, the health workforce has increased by a net 4,292. The number of staff employed by the HSE is identified through the staff cens…

I am afraid I do not have details in this regard with me as the issue was not mentioned in the question. The Deputy raised a report of the total number of staff being lower, which I looked into because I was very perplexed by it myself. It turns out that the total number of hours being worked when expressed as whole-time equivalent staff had, in fact, increased quite significantly.

Yes, but what the Deputy and I both want to see is faster recruitment. As I said in the House earlier, there is a lot of opportunity to improve recruitment processes. When the Deputy and I joined nurses and midwives on the picket line last year, they were not talking about pay increases but about safe staffing levels. I hope that, as the number of staff increases in accordance with the safe staffing agreement, the HSE across the board becomes a place where our own graduates and clinicians want to stay and work, as …

I will answer the last point first, as it is an issue I have looked into. The HSE has explicitly stated that it is not targeting healthcare professionals in nursing homes. It has, however, stated that it has its own ambitious hiring targets and that it cannot stop people from nursing homes applying. To refer to something I believe I have heard the Deputy mention, one way to keep healthcare professionals in nursing homes would be to carry out a review of that sector and of the pay and conditions within it. One of th…

Letterkenny University Hospital, LUH, is a model 3 hospital, operating as part of the Saolta University Health Care Group. There were 24,141 inpatients in LUH in 2019 and 9,731 inpatients in the first two quarters of this year. The budget allocation for Letterkenny University Hospital is €145.9 million. This is the 12th highest annual budget allocation for a public hospital in 2020. The Deputy will be happy to know that it is also the second highest budget for a model 3 hospital anywhere in Ireland. Data provided b…

I took a close look at this when I was going over the Deputy's question yesterday. I asked the very same question, which is if the hospital has the sixth highest level of inpatients but the 12th highest budget, what is the rationale? Is it that patients are being short-changed? The simple answer is "No". The Deputy knows well that in comparing budgets for hospitals, we must look at many different elements. For example, we must consider case mix, complexity, average length of stay and many other factors. There is no…

I thank the Deputy. We both know St. James's and nearly every other hospital are different. The work going on at St. James's per patient is highly complex and really expensive in all the ways we know. The right comparison would be activity-based costing. I am more than happy to discuss with the Deputy how much Letterkenny hospital is getting for the procedures it performs and the service it provides. Is it being short-changed, for example, and is it getting less money for a given procedure? That would be a concern …

I move: “That the Bill be now read a Second Time.” Moving the country to level 5 is necessary due to the rapid and exponential rise in new cases of Covid-19. However, it comes as we all know at a huge cost to individuals, families, communities and businesses. It must work. For that to happen we need a very wide buy-in to the measures. Ireland’s experience of the virus to date shows that the vast majority of people are following the public health measures the vast majority of the time. Unfortunately, the highly cont…

I am actually taking notes.

I thank my colleagues for a very detailed, useful and passionate debate. There are a lot of different views in this House, as there should be and needs to be. I have listened attentively and I have taken many pages of notes. Most of the Deputies who made points are not here but I will address the matters raised by those who are present. Questions were raised repeatedly about golf. There is obviously a big golfing fraternity in the Dáil. Questions were also asked about third level students. There are 180,000 registe…

I am happy to respond to Deputies if they like. Do you want me to respond?

Thanks.

I will yield.

Deputies Boyd Barrett and Pringle raised the point about dwelling events. Their argument, if I understood it correctly, is that taking measures that prevent certain things happening in houses means we are therefore somehow blaming, scapegoating and attacking people who live in houses. If that is the Deputies' view, that is fine, but it would have to be applied to every measure. As Deputy McGrath has said, the regulations apply to religious events. By the way, the churches are not closed. Anyone can go into a church…

We have not had a chance to debate the other amendments but we will not accept the grouping of amendments, which I accept are important. I have not had time to respond to the various points.