David Cullinane
Waterford · Sinn Féin · Ireland
“I met many of those patients and people with the illness yesterday. Many of them were here in Leinster House. They told me, as they have in the past, they cannot walk and they cannot swallow and, as the Taoiseach acknowledged, it is also very difficult for their families who have to watch as their condition worsens and the disease progres…”
“In fact, in the programme for Government the Government committed to reviewing that process because it was accepted it does not always work. The technical review group obviously now needs to be convened and needs to meet urgently. Emily cannot afford more delays.”
“Yesterday, as the Taoiseach knows, the HSE drugs group met to consider reimbursement of Skyclarys, the first approved treatment that can slow the progression of Friedreich's ataxia. Patients hoped for a positive decision. This process has been ongoing for years.”
“They were left desperately making phone calls, checking for updates, asking journalists and asking politicians if they had heard anything. They were treated appallingly. Then, when the news did eventually filter though, they were left devastated.”
“Richard Walsh, consultant neurologist and co-director of the National Ataxia Clinic, has described this drug as a ground-breaking development. He has said that he would prescribe it if it were available in Ireland and that it may reduce the rate of disease progression.”
“"We are not going to regain any of the abilities we've lost, but Skyclarys will give us time. Time when you're dealing with our progressive relentless disease is everything. We all deserve time with our loved ones." Those are the words of Emily Felix, a 28-year-old trainee solicitor from Kilkenny who is living with Friedreich's ataxia.”
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“While there were local decontamination structures and processes in place the structures and processes for decontamination were not standardised across both sites. At the time of the review there was no standardised processes in place across CHI relating to governance for the introduction and use of medical devices in practice, there were no controls in place to carry out any type of safety and technical checks on the springs and there was "an absence of structures and processes to support clear and adequate communication between Surgeon A and the Decontamination Manager around the details on the sterilisation process for the springs". There was failure after failure.”
“The HIQA report paints a picture of a chaotic organisation that has failed at its fundamental task of improving and modernising governance of children's healthcare. In reviewing the new governance structures implemented at CHI in recent years, HIQA found that "these arrangements were complex and did not lend themselves to clear and accountable governance and may have affected the ability for those responsible for the service to effectively oversee the delivery of care". The report went on to state: "These arrangements did not lend themselves to clear lines of reporting and oversight of operations on a day-to-day basis at each of the hospital sites for the delivery of high-quality, safe care." HIQA's report is a study in how not to run a hospital. HIQA found that each hospital site operated with a separate procurement process.”
“The report states: "HIQA found that a comprehensive suite of procedures for the introduction and management of all aspects of the Medical Device Regulations (MDR), or the previous regulatory framework which applied from 1994 to 2021, was not in place across CHI." Strikingly, HIQA concluded that at CHI Temple Street there was "no committee in place to approve and oversee the introduction of class III medical devices, including implantable medical devices". That is simply astonishing. Not only was CHI not following the rules, CHI was implementing rules that go back 30 years. The vital safeguard, which is a committee to approve and oversee the use of implantable medical devices, which would have and should have protected these children, simply did not exist at CHI. The dysfunction in CHI unfortunately did not stop there.”
“The report found that non-medical grade springs were ordered and procured through Children’s Health Ireland, prepared by Children’s Health Ireland and placed into children under the care of Children’s Health Ireland. At no point in the process did anyone say, "Stop". In fact, HIQA’s investigation found that not only did CHI fail to pick up on and stop the use of non-medical grade springs, but that CHI had totally failed to properly implement the regulations that should have stopped this from happening.”
“Seven years on from the establishment of CHI, however, we have received a scathing report from HIQA, which has laid bare the extreme and severe institutional and governance failures that allowed children under CHI’s care to be harmed. HIQA examined the end-to-end process by which non-medical grade springs were ordered and, in the end, placed into three vulnerable children, from whom they have since been removed. The report by HIQA can be summed up by a single sentence: “Children were not protected from the risk of harm.” That is a staggering finding, and HIQA’s report leaves no doubt that there were individual wrongdoings, but they should have been stopped by CHI. However, CHI was so poorly run that it did not have control or oversight of what was happening in its hospitals.”
“They felt that they were not listened to, that they were silenced, that they were ignored and they feel very badly let down. They raised concerns regarding a high level of infections and returns to surgery, which raised alarm bells, and very serious questions were being asked of the quality of theatre infrastructure and care delivered at Temple Street hospital in particular. In the middle of this, it transpired that non-medical grade springs had been inserted into three children, which then began to disintegrate. This led to several major investigations, namely, the Boston review, the now-live Nayagam review, the HIQA review and a financial audit. We have yet to receive Dr. Nayagam’s report on clinical practice.”
“More investment was announced, treatment abroad started again and we were told late last year that there would be no more than 20 children waiting longer than four months for a date for their procedure by the end of last year. As we speak today, there are still more than 50 children waiting longer than four months and a total of 137 children are waiting for a date for their surgery. In fact, 18 of them are waiting more than a year just for a date. The Minister mentioned capacity. There are fewer spinal consultants and surgeons working in CHI today than there were in 2022. That is a very serious problem. In 2023, very serious concerns came to light about the quality of orthopaedic care at Children’s Health Ireland. These concerns were first brought forward by parents and advocate groups.”
“It was established to improve and integrate governance of several children’s hospitals in Dublin and to provide a single and modernised national structure for the delivery of hospital-based specialist children’s care. It took control of these hospitals in 2019. In 2017, as we know, the then Minister gave his infamous broken promise that no child would be waiting longer than four months for a scoliosis procedure by the end of that year. CHI is the organisation responsible for delivering that, and it failed, as did the Government. Resources were committed and treatment abroad was started but then it stopped with no explanation and the waiting lists continued to grow. Then we had the former health Minister, Stephen Donnelly.”
“There are many exceptional individuals working tirelessly in CHI to deliver the best care that they can for our children. I have met many of them; I meet them all the time. I applaud and salute them because I know that they are as frustrated as Sinn Féin and I are with the failings of CHI as an organisation. Unfortunately, there are very serious problems at CHI, which make it impossible for Sinn Féin to have confidence in that organisation's ability to take charge of the new children's hospital. The story of CHI has been a sorry saga of dysfunction and crisis. Children’s Health Ireland was formally established in 2018 by then Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, under the Children’s Health Act.”
“She went on to become a TD for Dublin in 1923 and served as vice president of Sinn Féin until 1927. The new hospital needs a new name and I could not think of a more fitting tribute and person to name it after. I ask the Government to consider that.”
“Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle. I am delighted too to be introducing this Bill with my colleagues in honour of one of Ireland's unsung patriots. The purpose of the Bill is to name the new children's hospital "Ospidéal Náisiúnta Kathleen Lynn do Leanaí". Dr. Lynn was a phenomenal person and a progressive patriot who dedicated her life to the betterment of the lives of Irish people, in particular women and children. She was a founder of Ireland's first children's hospital, Teach Naomh Ultáin, which was established in 1919. This was inspired by her work with poverty-stricken communities in inner city Dublin who were suffering from severe neglect. Dr. Lynn was chief medical officer of the Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Easter Rising.”
“What I am concerned about, and I genuinely need to say this to the Taoiseach, is that the audit under way at present as far as I understand it covers the period from 2021 to 2023. Families are coming to us about issues outside of this time period. There needs to be a much wider look at this. There are many systemic failures in CHI. We know families have been calling for a wider review.”
“Yesterday we had the publication of the HIQA report into CHI, which was discussed in the House at length. The report was damning and outlined a litany of management, clinical, ethical, and informed consent failures. This was not only about use of unauthorised non-medical grade springs, which, of course, was the substance of the report, as the systemic failures go wider than this. Teachta Ó Murchú received an email from a family in County Louth about the hip dysplasia issue. Their child was three or four years old at the time, in 2019. The family was told the child would need hip dysplasia surgery, which would involve cutting into the bone of the child. The family got a second opinion in the North and they were told the child did not have the condition. We have several emails like this.”
“Here we are in 2025 and there is still no decision. The Taoiseach said in the past he was supportive of this, which I accept, but we need to get it over the line. The funding has to be provided. Will the Taoiseach directly intervene to ensure a year is not lost and that funding is provided?”
“I again raise with the Taoiseach - I raised this issue with the Tánaiste a number of weeks ago - the need to provide the funding for the runway extension at Waterford Airport. I have raised it several times with the Taoiseach over the past number of years. I spoke to a member of the airport board this morning, who told me there has been no contact between the Minister or Minister of State and the board. He told me a decision is needed very quickly - in fact, in the next number of weeks - on the State funding and that if that decision is not made favourably, this year will be lost and no works will happen until the following year, if the money is given. The Taoiseach knows that commitment was given in 2019. I was at a meeting of Oireachtas Members, as was the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, and others at the time.”
“During the election campaign we had one story for those struggling householders that we would cut energy costs and now he is coming in, knowing and being told by the experts that energy prices will increase, and saying that the supports for those families will be cut and rolled back. It is simply not good enough. What are people faced with? They are faced with five more years of increases.”
“Undoubtedly there is volatility and uncertainly around the world. There is also volatility and uncertainty faced by so many families who are struck by, and who are dealing with, all of these increases, particularly in rising energy costs. The Minister has said he cannot take to his feet and say to people with all credibility that he will continue with the supports that were previously put in place. The Minister says this knowing that price increases are on the way. What he has not said is that during the course of the election campaign his party leader was well able to stand up and commit during the course of the campaign to cut electricity prices.”
“Their lives and their worries matter. The Government cannot keep talking about what it has done in the past, which is what it reaches for when we raise these very serious issues. People are being hit by these bills now, today, and it is hurting them, big time. If they are facing long-term energy price hikes then they need long-term support. Does the Minister now accept that the Government has to step up to the plate? Will it continue to provide support for people to meet their energy bills? Will the Minister assure householders today that the Government will come forward with measures that will provide relief to all of those families who are in desperate situations?”
“Incredibly, this briefing flagging further rip-off hikes in energy bills and calling for Government supports for households was provided to the Government in January. Yet, the Minister for public expenditure, Deputy Chambers, came out last month and announced to those same struggling families that there would be no more energy credits, despite being briefed that energy bills would continue to increase over the next five years. That is deeply cynical. I talk to people every day in my constituency, as I am sure many Members do, who tell me that they cannot keep up with their bills, their lives are getting tougher, and they are struggling to get by every single day and every single month. They are doing their best but they need support. I am sure everybody in this House meets people with similar experiences. Their concerns matter.”
“It means that, on average, people are paying a whopping €1,779 per year for electricity and €1,503 per year for gas. Is it any wonder that families in Ireland are being forced into energy poverty? We have hundreds of thousands of families in arrears. Let that sink in. What does that tell the Minister and the Government? It tells me and many people watching that people are finding it harder and harder to pay these extortionate prices. How on earth are people supposed to afford the increases that are coming down the tracks? The Minister needs to answer that question. The Government needs to answer that question because there are struggling families the length and breadth of this country in despair this morning. They do not have the answer and they certainly do not have the means to pay for more increases.”
“An internal briefing document to the Government from the Department of energy and climate shows that the energy rip-off is going to continue for five more years. Workers and families will continue to face increased electricity and gas prices every single year for the next five years. As usual, big energy companies will enjoy more bumper profits while ordinary workers and families who are already under enormous pressure get squeezed even further. The report goes on to advise that households will need support from the Government to meet these hikes because they cannot take any more. As the briefing to the Government notes, gas bills are already 90% higher today than they were at the start of the crisis and electricity bills are 61% higher. What does that mean for people's pockets?”
“The cost-of-living crisis has not gone away; far from it. Workers and families are still finding it very difficult to make ends meet. People face extortionate bills and prices right across the board and for many, it is never-ending. It is runaway rents, childcare fees that equate to the cost of a second mortgage, the cost of the weekly shop and insurance costs, but perhaps where households have come under the most pressure is when it comes to rip-off electricity and gas prices. In recent years families have been hammered by a barrage of sharp increases in energy costs. They have just gone up and up, to the point where households in this State pay the second-highest electricity prices in the EU. This morning, unfortunately, there is more bad news for those households.”
“I echo the points made by my colleague. I visited with him a GP centre in Tallow, County Waterford. It has an application in for funding because the practice is too small and the space in the centre is not fit for purpose. We could see that ourselves when we visited. There is a need to progress funding for it. The same is true of the Cappoquin health centre. I got a phone call from the lead GP there last week. It was accepted as a GP training surgery. It has three young GPs. They have an application for funding in and they are telling me that application is not progressing as quickly as possible. These are two GP surgeries in rural towns with multiple GPs working from them contacting us as public representatives and asking us to intervene because they believe their funding applications are not progressing as quickly as possible.”
“It is a very serious issue on top of all the other reviews which are ongoing and it feeds into the need for more consultants, more staff, proper training, proper oversight and proper accountability. I am alarmed that we have this report, which I have not heard Government respond to yet, that potentially operations which were unnecessary have been carried out on children. We need to be assured that this has been properly investigated. Has the Minister seen this audit report which has been published? Has she sought it? What action will the Government take on the back of the allegations which have been made?”
“If we do not have enough paediatric surgeon consultants, it creates problems. The Minister knows we have the ongoing Nayagam review and the review by HIQA into the use of springs. There was a media report this week of an audit that was commenced in April of last year conducted by an NHS consultant on the back of very serious allegations made by whistleblowers, including that operations on children were being done purely for financial gain, that osteotomies in two of the three children's hospitals have now been suspended and that potentially there could be a recall of up to 561 children. Is that the case? Has she, as Minister for Health, investigated this?”
“Is that the case? We cannot have a situation where we have a state-of-the-art hospital but we do not have the paediatric surgeons needed. All of us in this House know about all the surgeries for children with scoliosis and spina bifida and many more that urgently need to be carried out so we need to be assured by the Minister that those 17 consultant surgical posts will be in place by 2028.”
“I very much hope it is a case of 15th time lucky regarding that commitment and we see it handed over in June. I have a letter from 12 surgeons who work in the department of paediatric surgery, which I raised previously with the Government. In it, they talk about how the national model of care for paediatric surgery clearly outlines the need for 17 paediatric surgeons by 2028. It goes on to say, "we are very concerned that the recommended workforce of 17 paediatric surgeons has not been included in either the definitive business case for the new Children's Hospital, nor in any of the estimates over the last few years". It went on to state that, "this repeated lack of engagement and commitment to address the concerns of the department of surgery has left us with no option but to refer the letter to you [and many others in the HSE]".”
“This question concerns the new national children's hospital and the preparedness of the State, the Government and CHI for what will be a decanting of staff from three hospitals into the new children's hospital. People want to be assured that the June deadline for completion will be met but also that the Minister and the Government are on top of the project, the contractor, the board and the handover because it is really important that we have as smooth a transition as possible from those three hospitals to the new hospital.”
“If we are in favour of multi-annual funding, then I hope the Minister will set out a very clear five-year strategy of ring-fenced funding for cardiovascular care and the many other national strategies that are needed to ensure that consistency and certainty of funding are there. Cardiac problems are the second biggest killer so this is very important. We have not had a strategy since 2019 and this report has been held up. The Minister said she will look at it. I accept that she is new in the role but there is an urgency here. I hope that when she comes back from the St. Patrick's Day visit, she will publish that report and move to the next stage of developing new strategies as quickly as possible.”
“Both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste previously said several times in this House that, in principle, they support 24-7 cardiac services for the south east. In fact, the current Taoiseach stood behind a banner essentially saying that his party would deliver the 24-7 cardiac service. I know that is going to require additional resources and additional consultants but we need a policy decision. I am asking Deputy Carroll MacNeill a straight question. She is now the Minister for Health. Is she committed in principle to a full, 24-7 cardiac service in the south-east? That is the first question. Second, it was stated in the programme for Government and also during the course of the election campaign that the Government is in favour of multi-annual funding for the health service.”
“on any day of the week or at the weekend in Waterford, their only option is to be sent by ambulance to Cork or Dublin. Obviously, and rightly so, there is a campaign for a full 24-7 cardiac service. This needs to be published as quickly as possible. The Minister has not answered the question as to why it has taken so long. The review was commissioned in 2019 and it is now 2025. It has been sitting on the Minister’s desk and we are now told again that it will be a number of weeks.”
“The problem is that I have been told that on at least three occasions. I know the report was with the previous Minister for Health for most of last year. Deputy Carroll MacNeill is a new Minister coming in but there is continuity in that this report has been sitting on the Department's desk. It is not going to be the new national cardiovascular strategy because that strategy has to look at prevention, diagnosis and rehabilitation care, whereas this report was specifically set up to look at acute services and, as the Minister said, the regional cardiac networks. As the Minister knows, part of that is relevant to my constituency in the south east. We still do not have 24-7 emergency cardiac services. If people are unfortunate enough to have a heart attack at 9 p.m. or 10 p.m.”
“Will the Minister outline when the national review of cardiac services conducted by Professor Nolan and his team will be published? I sat in a meeting in 2019, when Deputy Simon Harris was the Minister for Health, with Oireachtas Members from across the south-east and at that point, that review had been commissioned. Here we are, in 2025, and it still has not been published. It was sitting on the previous Minister’s desk for at least nine months. I got a commitment last year that this would be published very quickly - within a matter of weeks - yet it still has not been published. When will it be published?”
“Ballymacarbry is a village in County Waterford. People there have worked with the local council, which has put in a funding request for traffic-calming measures outside the school. These are also important issues. Will the Minister look into that and look favourably on it? It is a very important improvement for people who live in the Ballymacarbry area and parish.”
“This is important from a road safety perspective. Approximately 60% of the improvements that will be carried out are improvements to the existing road network. The three bypasses form approximately 40% of the project, as the Minister will know. That is in line with the Department's guidelines. This is very important economically because it concerns the connectivity of two major cities, namely, Waterford and Limerick. It is an opportunity for Waterford to have an improved road network and improved transport connectivity with the west of Ireland, so it is important. I agree there is also a need to upgrade the N25, which is the Waterford to Cork route. Colleagues across the Waterford and Cork area have lobbied extensively for this over the past number of years. I was in contact with the Ballymacarbry road action group.”
“The Minister will know that the preferred transport route has been agreed and has gone out for public consultation. That will include bypasses for Clonmel, Carrick-on-Suir, Kilsheelan and, I think, Mooncoin. Is he committed to providing that €2.2 million in 2025?”
“I agree with the Minister on the transformative nature of the north quays project, which we all want to see progressed as quickly as possible. I will raise the issue of upgrading the N24, which is the Waterford to Limerick road. I spoke to the Minister privately on this a number of weeks ago. I know he received a letter from the three CEOs of the local authorities in Carlow-Kilkenny, Waterford and Tipperary. He will know that the project was funded up to phase 1. We now need phases 2, 3 and 4 to be fully funded. My understanding is that there is an ask of approximately €8 million over the next three years and €2.2 million is needed to advance phases 3 and 4 in 2025. The CEOs of the local authorities are looking for that commitment.”
“I do not want to see children with disabilities waiting for dental treatment. These are not the types of cases we want to bring to the floor of the Dáil, but, unfortunately, we have to because of the many challenges we have in the healthcare system.”
“I wonder because we have had 13 or 14 deadlines, which, as the Minister knows, have come and gone. She will probably have seen a letter that was sent to her as well from a number of paediatric consultants working in Children's Health Ireland. They referred to the lack of consultant posts and, essentially, said that if we do not see more capacity in this space, the hospital will not even be safely staffed from the perspective of the consultants from day one. All these are important issues if people are to have confidence that the national children's hospital will be opened on time and treating children as quickly as possible. I wish the Minister well. I want to see progress being made. I want to see waiting times reducing. I do not want to see hospital appointment cancellations.”
“The Minister also spoke about the new national children's hospital. It is interesting that we hear a great deal about this June deadline. That is the completion date given by the contractor. I was a member of the Oireachtas health committee when the members of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board came before the committee last October and told us they had no confidence that the contractor would meet that date. They told us that none of the 4,000 rooms or spaces in the hospital were finished to the appropriate standard. They told us the contractor was not adequately resourcing the project and they had grave doubts whether any of these issues could be resolved. I do not know what happened over the past few months, but now it seems everybody is saying this June deadline will be met. The question is if it will be met.”
“She talks about providing more community beds. I raised this publicly a number of times. There is no number. Is it one, 50 or 100? Any of us could come into this Chamber and say we are going to do more, have more beds and more staff. If we did that and produced a plan that just called for more of everything, we would laughed out of it. The Minister has to have specifics in this regard. What does she mean by more community beds? She mentions the four elective hospitals. We have been hearing about these elective hospitals for years and years and they are still at the starting gate. They are crucial. It is reform with a big R. If we separate scheduled from unscheduled care, that is the best way to actually reduce waiting lists, particularly those in the elective space which are the big problem. I refer to orthopaedics and many other areas.”
“I know she is not directly responsible for mental health but it was not overtly mentioned in the Minister's speech. We have a real problem with CAMHS, which is under-resourced. There was a promise of 12 dual-diagnosis teams to be established in this State. Only two are up and running and even those two teams are not fully operational. All of these are issues under the Government's control, and now under the Minister's, which need to be dealt with. I turn to the programme for Government. The Minister outlined a long list of commitments she wants to deliver over the next five years. We will see what progress can be made. She talks about 4,000 to 4,500 new and refurbished beds. What we need are timeframes. How many of them are new? How many of them are refurbished? Is the capital funding there to make all of that happen?”
“As Teachtaí Dála, we all receive representations all the time from people who are looking for intensive home care packages and they are not there. The Minister spoke about having the senior decision-makers, as she put it, working in our hospitals during bank holiday weekends to speed up discharges but if she talks to hospital managers they will tell you that part of the problem is that people cannot be discharged because the step-down beds, the recovery beds, the convalescent beds or the home care options are simply not there. If we only focus on one element of the problem, we will not solve it. It needs a lot of different solutions - not just want is happening in the hospital but what is happening outside of the hospital. We also have a real crisis in mental health.”
“When we see a surge in emergency departments, one of the few options open to hospital managers is to cancel elective procedures and that then creates havoc with our health services generally. It is right that we should always aim to ensure that people can live longer and live healthier lives. The first thing we need to do is to make sure that people can be treated and live in their homes. The Minister mentioned that in her speech. She did not mention was the statutory home care scheme that was in the last programme for Government and it seems is in this programme for Government, though the Minister made no mention of whether she would deliver it. We were promised it and promised it and yet no movement was made by the previous Government.”
“It was causing her great difficulty as she is the main carer for her daughter who has Down's syndrome and she is restricted because of her injury. She turned up today at the hospital only to find out that not only her surgery but that of many others was cancelled because of other problems in the hospital. This is causing her great stress. Her daughter is due for treatment in the hospital next week and now she is worried her daughter's treatment will also be cancelled. There were 20,000 more hospital cancellations last year than there were the previous year. Therefore, while the Minister can talk about the number of long waiters coming down - and I celebrate the fact that they are - we still have far too many problems in our healthcare system, including cancellations and overcrowding.”
“According to the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, we have this continuous clash between the figures produced by the HSE and the numbers used by the INMO. However, last year, there were 122,186 patients admitted to a hospital without a bed. In fact, January of this year was the worst-performing month in the history of the State with more than 13,000 people again treated inappropriately without being admitted to a bed in our hospitals right across the State. Most of those people were not there on bank holiday weekends. I got an email from a constituent called Mary. I want to give her example because the Minister asked for examples. This was not a bank holiday. It was today. She said she was waiting since July for an amputation following an infection and complications from a previous surgery.”
“I start by wishing the Minister well. I think is the first chance we have had in the Dáil to formally do that. I also acknowledge the contribution that the former Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly made as well. It is important to put that on record. We had many exchanges but there are areas of healthcare, particularly women's healthcare, where the former Minister made a lot of positive changes so I want to start with that. The Minister mentioned bank holidays, and rightly so. We see a spike on bank holidays in terms of the numbers of patients on hospital trolleys or not admitted to a bed in a timely fashion. The difficulty is it is not just on bank holidays; it is every day of every week of every month.”
“That is the reality, unfortunately, and unless we have more driving instructors and permanent test centres, many more people will have to wait longer for the test. That is unfair on them. It is something that can be fixed.”
“It is, because there are many people who do not have the tests within the target timeframes they should. The Minister may get a chance to respond again later. I want to refer to one example of a young man from Waterford who contacted me. He is not interested in glib responses from the Minister. He is interested in the Minister coming up with solutions and actually dealing with the problem. He needs his licence for work. He finished his lessons and was signed off at the start of September. He was originally told he would be invited for a test by 10 January. He was then told it would be 17 March at the earliest and possibly later than that. After that, he would have to wait another three or four weeks to get the test.”
“We do not have enough test centres. Some of them are also temporary. In some areas we do not have any test centres. We have identified the obvious solution, which is to get the RSA and OPW to identify the gaps and make sure that every city and county has enough test centres. It is not rocket science. The problem is the fact that it is beyond the comprehension or ability of the Government to resolve it.”