Paul Murphy: Warns of Covid crisis, urges ventilation and testing

We are in a crisis situation again with Covid and I think the government needs to acknowledge that. Our ICU capacity in danger of being overrun, the threat of Covid spreading into nursing homes yet again and the government once again sleepwalking us into lockdown at Christmas. It is Groundhog Day. What is perhaps most surprising is that the government is reported to be taken aback at the level of Covid hospitalisations and the situation we are now in. Why on earth are you surprised, Taoiseach? Look at the decisions that your government made which brought us to this point. After more than a year and a half of a pandemic, you have failed to increase our ICU capacity to the levels that are necessary. We are currently sitting at a little more than half the average for the OECD and at the rate that the government is going, it will take 13 years to reach the OECD average. After the first Covid wave passed, the private hospital capacity was returned to the for-profit sector and now the state will presumably pay over the odds to lease them again instead of taking them permanently into the public system and using them to build a properly funded quality one-tier national health service. Taoiseach, Covid-19 is an airborne virus but the government has repeatedly downplayed the crucial role played by poor ventilation in spreading it. We are 21 months into an airborne pandemic and there are still no legally enforceable, measurable standards for indoor air quality. It is quite incredible when you think about it. You refuse to introduce anything other than guidance to ensure that schools, workplaces and public transport are well ventilated or, where necessary, have HEPA filters. Then you force people back into poorly ventilated workplaces and classrooms on crowded public transport. Incredibly, the government, after refusing to supply a single HEPA filter to our schools, abandoned contact tracing and testing in our schools entirely. Here we are again, utterly predictable and utterly disastrous. To avoid lockdowns, it is not enough to rely on the vaccines, crucial though they are. We need a vaccines plus strategy, based on the principles of prevent, vaccinate, control. We need ventilation, vaccination and vastly increased amounts of testing. At this late stage Taoiseach, will the government finally take action to avoid the current crisis becoming a calamity? Firstly, will you commit to provide antigen tests to those who want them, for free, as is done with the NHS in Britain, to encourage widespread and regular use through the population? And will you also expand PCR testing capacity, which we know is overwhelmed? Secondly, will you deal with the crucial issue of ventilation? Will you follow the example of Belgium in saying that every workplace needs a CO2 monitor and CO2 levels must be kept at safe levels? Finally, will you make our schools as safe as possible for pupils and teachers? Will you reintroduce contact tracing and testing immediately? Will you follow the example of Germany in introducing HIPAA filters into all our classrooms? Our public health advice has been consistent from the get-go that our schools are safe places in respect of the management of COVID-19. There are 35,000 CO2 monitors issued to our schools and they are in use. As I have said, the advice is if children are symptomatic, do not send children to school. And symptomatic in terms of calls or whatever, the biggest issue facing children is RSV and non-COVID respiratory illness. Those are the facts right now in respect of the challenges that face our healthcare system in terms of paediatrics. And it is serious where we are. Given the interchange here in the shortness of time, I will expand later in terms of the situation that is facing us. I know the deputy you opposed and you were opposing the extension of the legislation that will enable us to continue with our management of COVID-19. I see an entire inconsistency in your approach, particularly given that you were the strongest advocate in the house for zero COVID from the outset and you wanted a zero COVID regime for a long, long time. And you went silent on that then when it suited to go silent in relation to that. On the piece, on testing, we are doing 200,000 PCR tests a week. We have one of the best PCR systems, not the best, but one of the better ones in Europe and globally in terms of the volume per capita and the amount of testing that we are doing. And we have expanded antigen testing also in different locations. A very substantial piece of work is required on the communications of antigen testing. The public health advice, as we know, has not from the outset been enthusiastic about antigen testing. We did form an expert advisory group that have recommended a series of steps to be taken in respect of antigen. But the public health advice is still cautious in respect of it. I support for the rollout of antigen. But I do accept that strong communications are required and a communications program required in terms of the how, the when and the why utilisation of antigen testing is important. But it has been expanded in terms of close contacts and so forth. And tests are being issued and there will be further initiatives taken in respect of antigen, which the Minister will deal with shortly. So in that context, I don't accept your criticisms as valid in respect of testing. In fact, we have a very robust testing system. The issue is when you open up, socialisation does grow and it does create opportunities for a variant as transmissible as Delta. But we had to give working people and people generally the opportunity to go back to work. And by reopening the economy, we have created thousands of jobs. The situation now is, however, as we move into the winter season, with the seasonality that applies to this particular virus, we do need to take the impending threat very seriously. Collectively, as a society, we do need to reduce socialisation. And the government has announced steps in respect of specific measures to add to that overall objective of reducing socialisation, reducing contacts, rolling out the booster programme, along with other initiatives as well. Mr Murphy. Thanks. Mr Murphy. Someone said to me earlier that they should rename leaders' questions, or leaders' obfuscations. I asked three simple questions. I didn't get an answer to a single one of them. Instead, I got a repetition of what is just a line that schools are safe places. Are you seriously saying that no transmission of Covid takes place in schools? Is that what you are saying about schools are safe places? That is not what the international evidence suggests. There are children in our hospitals now with Covid. That is what the figures demonstrate. And you suggest that it is some kind of revelation that when we reopen, then increase socialisation and then, of course, you will have spread of... Absolutely. But then why didn't you do what was necessary to make schools, workplaces and public transport safe? And that is what the questions relate to. Will you introduce free antigen testing? Will you introduce HEPA filters into our schools? And thirdly, will you finally recognise the role that airborne transmission of Covid plays and introduce legislation to require clean air for everybody? And you don't even have to write new legislation. We did it in the summer time, the workplace ventilation bill, Covid-19. And we are going to use our time next week. You won't have to use government time. We will use our time next week to bring that bill forward to ensure that everybody in a school, in a workplace, has right to clean air. And if you go over a certain level of CO2, over 900 parts per million, action has to be taken. Will you commit to at least support that bill, even though you didn't introduce it yourself, to enable people to have safe air and to stop transmission in this way? Why do you ignore public health advice and deny it every time you come in here talking about schools? I didn't repeat a line, Deputy. I gave you a line that we have received in terms of consistent advice on public health through the Chair. Yet you continually ignore it, because it suits your propaganda approach to all of this. You don't look at this issue from a purely public health perspective. You look at it from a party advancement or a movement advancement perspective. That's what my genuine takeaway. You were an advocate for Covid-19 for a long time. You know you won't even facilitate the extension of the legislation to give capacity for government to do things, if necessary, in the middle of an emergency. You object to that and make a big deal about objecting to that. I am answering your question, because you ridiculed the idea that public health advice in respective schools is not valid. You have just ridiculed that and dismissed it. You don't seem to accept it at all. I have been in paediatric hospitals. I was in Clarmel two weeks ago, in the paediatric ward who told me my issue is RSV in terms of admission into that ward and the pressure the ward was under and other respiratory illnesses. In terms of the workplace, you know we have worked with the trade union movement and the employer movement in respect of return to work safety protocols. Even as we speak, about 50 per cent have returned. So, huge efforts have been made to make workplaces safe. You said you were going to answer your question. In respect of deventilation in schools, that's literally 35,000 CO2 monitors were distributed to schools up and down the country, in respect of monitoring air quality and ensuring that air quality is OK. Not a single question answered. He said he was answering the question. He didn't answer a single question.