If the Senator had bothered checking what I was able to check on my phone while sitting here, he would have been able to see publicly available information that is published on a daily basis by the HSE. Let me repeat that the HSE 8 a.m. TrolleyGAR figure for 1 February was eight and the average for week five of this year was six. Those are the official figures from the HSE.

They are not wrong.

As you may or may not know-----

Through the Chair-----

I note the Senator has made false accusations -----

-----and then when presented with verifiable facts, has chosen to simply shout down the person who is pointing him to the facts. As the Senator may or may not be aware, the HSE and the INMO publish different figures. The figures the HSE publishes are the patients on trolleys in emergency departments at 8 a.m. That is what is counted. That is what is reported. That is what I spoke to. The Senator may not accept what the HSE is saying. He may believe they are liars. He may believe that they are trying to mislead peop…

The figures that I have quoted are verifiable.

I would ask the Senator-----

If the Senator has any interest in the truth-----

-----he would withdraw the accusations made-----

I thank the Senators for raising the important issue of the welfare and safety of the staff of our health service. When it comes to the safety of our staff, it is vital that this House sends out a strong and united message. For this reason the Government will not oppose the motion. Matters were raised in the motion and in the debate this evening which I do not agree with, but it is important that a strong message is sent out about our healthcare workers. While I have no doubt whatsoever of the good intentions of th…

In our service, more than two in every five nurses and doctors were not trained in Ireland and without them we could not provide the essential care people need. To all our healthcare workers, I say thank you for everything you do day after day for patients and their families. To all who have come here from another country, I say you are welcome, you are valued and we will stand with you to resist any form of abuse, assault or attack. I say to people who are perpetrating these attacks on our healthcare workers, you …

I entirely reject the characterisation by the Deputy. As she will be aware, the Government has just made Cariban free. That has never happened before. It is an unlicensed product-----

It is an unlicensed product, as the Deputy will be aware. If she has been reading the responses, she will also be aware that the HSE is following exactly the protocol that it follows in all such cases for an unlicensed product, which in the first instance is that a specialist has to prescribe, and then a GP can. The Deputy, of course, is also aware, although none of this is reflected in her contribution, that I have asked the HSE to review this, given that many women who would benefit from Cariban could avail of an…

It has been a long-standing principle that people receiving residential care would contribute to the cost through a charge or contribution, based on their means, if any. As we are aware, inpatient long-stay charges which were levied up to 2004 under regulations from 1954 and 1976 were deemed to not have a legal basis. A repayment scheme was established in 2006 and the scope of the scheme, as set out in the Act establishing it, was specifically limited to inpatient charges levied under these regulations. I understan…

We should all be slightly wary of the estimate. It seems that estimates associated with many of these issues were very high relative to the reality. For example, a €5 billion estimate was put on the repayment scheme and it ended up being less than 10% of that. It would seem that very high estimates were put against many of these issues over time. The issue at hand essentially is whether with regard to the household contributions, which were not covered in the repayment scheme and were judged by the scheme itself to…

The Department is looking at exactly those issues. As I said, it will come down to a case-by-case basis. The advice I have is that it would not be applied as broadly as the scheme for nursing homes which were broadly defined as inpatient services. The question really is in what individual institutions, and in what individual cases, were they deemed to be household charges rather than inpatient services.

To recognise their role during the pandemic, the Government announced that a recognition payment of €1,000 tax-free would be made to all eligible staff. I am very happy to inform the House that over 188,000 staff have been paid. This measure compares favourably internationally. For example, in Northern Ireland it is £500 versus €1,000 in the Republic. In the public health service, roll-out is substantially complete, with over 88,500 HSE staff and over 52,500 section 38 staff having been paid. For eligible defence a…

It was a year ago and I was not satisfied with the pace of the process, which is why I intervened and for a move to a self-assessment model. However, while we all would have liked the payment to have gone out to everybody quicker than it did, I have no doubt that if the HSE had moved off its own bat, at a pace where there would have been significant errors made, there would have been double payments made. For example, let us say you had a clinician working in a HSE hospital and working in a nursing home as well, he…

The advice I have from the HSE and the Department is that for the 22% of private sector organisations that have submitted their applications, those payments will be made in the next few weeks. It is inevitable that we will be discussing individuals here or there or a particular contracting company within a particular hospital where a payment has been delayed. These payments should not be delayed though. Can we guarantee that every single person will be paid in the next few weeks? We can say that at an organisationa…