Government 'sleepwalking into a Christmas lockdown'

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said the Government had ignored advice around ventilation and had 'abandoned contact tracing and testing in our schools'" and had banked on vaccination alone ending the pandemic.'

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy: 'We are in a crisis situation again with Covid.' Picture: Gareth Chaney /Collins Photos

The Government is "sleepwalking the country into lockdown over Christmas", the Dáil has been told.

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy made the charge to Taoiseach Micheál Martin during Tuesday's leaders' questions, which focused entirely on Covid-19 and the health service.

Mr Murphy said the country is now in a "crisis situation", adding the Government's approach to Covid will see another lockdown over Christmas.

"We are in a crisis situation again with Covid," he said. 

"I think the Government needs to acknowledge that. Our ICU capacity is in danger of being overrun, there is the threat of Covid spreading into nursing homes yet again. And the Government, once again, is 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're now in. 

"Why on earth do you suppose that is? 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're currently at a little more than half the average for the OECD. And at the rate that the Government is going, it'll take 13 years to reach the OECD average."

Mr Murphy said the Government had ignored advice around ventilation and had "abandoned contact tracing and testing in our schools" and had banked on vaccination alone ending the pandemic.

"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."

In response, Mr Martin said 35,000 CO2 monitors had been sent to schools and that public health advice had been consistent on the safety of schools. He said that the illness RSV was more serious among children at the moment. He said Mr Murphy had opposed Covid legislation, which was "entirely inconsistent", given that Mr Murphy had been in favour of a zero-Covid strategy, and added that the Irish PCR system was "one of the best in the world".

Winter plan a failure

Earlier, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the HSE's winter plan was a failure and did not go far enough. She said that the system was being hampered by delays to recruitment and spending.

"As far back as July, Sinn Féin and others said there was no time to wait. We called for preparations for winter to start at that point and urgently. We drafted a plan and sent it to the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly. It was ignored. The Government's plan does not go far enough.

"Would the Taoiseach believe me if I told him the average recruitment time for a consultant is 562 days? It is six months for a nurse. Hospital managers across the State know this is ludicrous and it is a bureaucratic nightmare, Orwellian in its proportions."

The Taoiseach said this was something he wanted to "cut through", saying there is often "paralysis by analysis" in the health system.