It is not just a reflection. I am just saying, and I know the Deputy appreciates this, that I cannot commit to any specific changes-----

-----to the legal documents here.

I thank the Deputy for his contribution and questions. The golden share is a name attaching to ministerial powers. The golden share from many years ago was a name attaching to different powers. They just happen to have been called the same thing. What matters to us is what the ministerial powers here are. There are two very significant powers. The first is that the reserved powers of the new hospital, which are essentially the things the new hospitals does, can only be changed with the unanimous agreement of the bo…

Sinn Féin campaigned against investment for the Rotunda Hospital.

I am delighted to be here to discuss the current situation in respect of Covid. As Members will be aware, all remaining mandatory public health measures were removed on 28 February. As recommended by our medical advisers, we have transitioned from regulation and population-wide restrictions to a focus on public health advice, personal judgment and personal protective behaviours. The overall situation is improving. The number of people receiving general hospital care has fallen. However, we continue to have high lev…

I thank colleagues for their contributions. I would like to start by echoing the sentiments of Senator Murphy. This has been a brutal time. Thousands of people living in Ireland have died and many thousands more have been very sick. It has been the most difficult of times. Relative to most other countries in the world, Ireland has done well in protecting people and keeping them safe. The credit for that goes to the national effort. It is not about Government or all of us in the Oireachtas. Obviously, all of us here…

I thank the Deputy for his question. There will be a detailed session in the House on this issue this evening, at which I am sure we will get into greater detail. I reiterate my position since the start of this process. I will bring proposals on the new national maternity hospital to Government only if there are absolute guarantees of full independence for the national maternity hospital and absolute guarantees that all the services prescribed under law will be available there, as they are in Holles Street right no…

All I can do is repeat the position, which is that when I bring the final structure to the Government for approval, it will have multiple layers of protection in place. The Religious Sisters of Charity will have no hand, act, part, role, influence, board membership or anything else in the new structure. That is simply not going to happen. The Deputy is correct. There is genuine concern out there. I have spent time talking to the midwives and the doctors in the National Maternity Hospital. These are the women and th…

The work on the enabling structures has already commenced. Much work has already happened on the car park. Much work has been done on a pharmacy. On the process, I want to bring this to the Government soon. I imagine we will have a rigorous debate. I am happy to bring it to the Joint Committee on Health to tease it out there as well. There is a great deal of interest. What I want to do is make myself available, the officials available and, probably most importantly, the clinicians from the National Maternity Hospit…

I thank the Deputy for the question. I was not sure from the question, as initially tabled, whether the Deputy was talking about medical graduates or health and social care graduates. I will try to cover all of them in line with his introductory remarks. As he has quite rightly said, recruitment of qualified health and social care graduates, medical graduates, and nursing and midwifery graduates is an absolute priority for me and for the Government. The HSE has a process in place to offer newly qualified nursing an…

I thank the Deputy for the questions. Our hospitals are under very significant pressure. As of this morning, we have 1,610 patients in hospital with Covid. It is putting significant pressure on our hospitals, our patients, their families and our healthcare workers. I am conscious of, and fully understand, the calls that have been made through emergency medicine and the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, this morning. Our workers - their members - are exhausted. This is yet another Covid wave. It has been…

It is a reasonable request and one I will bring back to the Department. That is not a problem at all. For various reasons, there is no advice coming to me at the moment in terms of the reimposition of any measure. One reason is that the sublineage BA.2, which accounts for approximately 95% of cases, is so contagious that using population-based measures to push the curve down would need to be very serious. The advice remains that masks should be worn, people should stay at home if they are symptomatic and, criticall…

I beg the Leas-Cheann Comhairle's pardon. I just wish to re-emphasise that-----

Okay. I will stop.

I understand.

I thank the Deputy for this important question. I acknowledge his ongoing advocacy and work on the issue. The Government is committed to ensuring that those suffering from long Covid receive the full support they need. A few months ago, I met patients attending a long Covid clinic in Tallaght University Hospital. Hearing first hand from them about the significant deterioration in their ability to live their lives and the symptoms they were dealing with was sobering. According to the advice I have been given, we kno…

I accept that the Deputy was told this last September. Since then, a great deal has happened and clinics have been set up. The Deputy will appreciate that, given the immense pressure that our hospital system is under, our healthcare professionals are working as quickly as they can. The interim model of care focuses on two different aspects - post-acute clinics and, after that, long Covid clinics. As the Deputy rightly stated, we need the clinics in all of the hospital groups. We have them in four and are establishi…

Regarding the clinical approach, the HSE is using the UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, NICE, guidelines in defining long Covid. The HSE says that long Covid is characterised by symptoms that develop during or after an infection consistent with Covid-19, persist beyond 12 weeks and are not attributable to a different diagnosis. As the Deputy is aware, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the international literature about how many people experience prolonged symptoms, but as he has consiste…

I fully agree. Women and children in the main are arriving in Ireland, fleeing a horrific and illegal war in Ukraine, and it is essential that they receive all the health and social care supports that they need. A huge amount of work is ongoing between my Department, the HSE, other Departments and non-government agencies to ensure access to the services they require. This includes access to acute care, chronic care, services for children's health, mental health, disabilities, maternity care, older people and many m…

The short answer is "Yes". This is something I discussed when I met the Ukrainian ambassador. We have many qualified healthcare professionals here. We have an amazing group of Ukrainian clinicians here already. We have been working with them to try to send humanitarian supplies back to Ukraine. A lot has been done there and we will continue to work with the Ukrainian community already here. The Deputy quite rightly said that we have doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health and social care professionals coming in…