I want to challenge the Taoiseach's assertion that he is on top of dealing with the Covid-19 crisis. His Government has already lost its way in dealing with Covid-19 and if things do not change we are facing a very serious situation and the likelihood of a second wave and we will not be in a position to prevent that becoming a very significant problem if not a disaster.

As well as the obvious need to state simply that non-essential travel into this country will not be allowed and that people will be checked on the way in, the other key area, the front line, which we seem to have completely forgotten about, is the capacity of our health service to deal with a second surge and, possibly, with influenza outbreaks, which are likely to increase in the autumn.

I do not know if the Taoiseach heard the pretty alarming, frightening testimony of Siobhán Murphy, a young nurse, at the Covid-19 committee this morning, who had no underlying health conditions, was working in a Covid-19 ward, was infected with Covid-19, as were 12 of the 19 nurses on her ward, a number of whom were hospitalised with very severe symptoms, and who described her psychological trauma as a result of having to work in these conditions and the impact of Covid-19 on her. She was absolutely clear, as was Phil Ní Sheaghdha from the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, that chronic understaffing and a lack of capacity in our health system was at the root of us having the highest infection rate among healthcare workers of those infected anywhere in the world. The global proportion of healthcare workers infected of all of those infected is 10%. Here it is 34%, and in the past two weeks it is 46%. Nearly half of the infections that have happened in the past two weeks are among healthcare workers, and this is even with personal protective equipment, PPE, because they are working 12-hour shifts, are not getting breaks, and are fatigued, frightened and traumatised by the situation. Critically, they are chronically understaffed. We have 1,000 fewer nurses in the health system than we had in 2007. We need 5,000 additional nurses to drive up the capacity of our system.

We are desperately under-resourced and under capacity to deal with a possible second wave, yet all we hear about this week is guarantees for banks and big economic stimulus. It seems as if the Government has forgotten about the health pandemic and all it is concerned about now is business. Will the Taoiseach heed the call of the healthcare workers to embark immediately on an ambitious campaign of recruitment to drive up the capacity in our health service, to double the ICU capacity, and to make Covid-19 infections in our hospitals a notifiable issue so that the Health and Safety Authority, HSA, can be called in to assess the health and safety conditions that our health workers are in? Will the Taoiseach support our health workers not just with words but by resourcing them and preparing for what is coming if we face, as we very likely will, a second wave of this infection in the autumn?

I do not agree with the Deputy’s initial remarks on the overall Covid-19 strategy. As I said earlier, societies all over the world, as they reopen, are experiencing huge issues with the virus and very significant clusters have emerged in many locations in Europe and elsewhere. We are very anxious to avoid that. We are working with the CMO and with the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET. Non-essential travel has been the advice from the very beginning.

The Deputy said that tests should be carried out at airports. NPHET does not agree.

I am talking about checks.

What does the Deputy mean by checks?

Actual checks are essential.

NPHET and the medical experts are very wary about doing randomised or other testing. Everyone has spoken about the importance of NPHET advice and it believes that there are many complications around this which could create issues for the contact tracing and isolation system within the country. It is very easy to say that we should do this or that. We have examined these issues and continue to examine them. It is important to say again that the focus now is on the health capacity. With the winter flu in particular coming our way, great work is being done within the Health Service Executive on capacity issues, as they relate to staff, physical capacity, ICU and the acute hospital system, and on the flu vaccination programme.

I visited the HSE on the Friday before last with the express purpose of speaking to people there about the prioritisation of the winter initiative right now so that we will be in a position to have the capacity to deal with whatever comes our way in the autumn, particularly within our hospital settings.

It must also be acknowledged that front-line healthcare workers have been key to dealing with the virus. The Deputy spoke about Siobhán Murphy. I did not hear her testimony, other than a small part of it on the news on the way in. This is a terrible, dangerous and deadly virus. We have to do everything we possibly can to prevent people from getting it. We cannot understate its impact on individuals' health. People can have it for a long time, they can be debilitated and it can create issues for their long-term health. That is why we need to continue to maintain our current behaviour in terms of social distancing and respiratory etiquette. Those are the essentials that will keep this virus down. People congregating indoors in large numbers has been a significant factor in the increase in numbers over the past two weeks. Those are important issues that we need to address and keep working on in order to ensure that we can keep down the spread of the virus by practising the kinds of behaviour to which I refer. I am under no illusions about how dangerous this virus is to the health of any individual and to all of us in general. That is why we have to do everything we possibly can to keep it low.

Words are simply not matched with deeds. The major source of infection in the context of Covid-19 is now among healthcare workers. After all that we went through, healthcare workers are getting the virus. Siobhán Murphy described what they are having to deal with. They are working 12-hour shifts and are not getting adequate breaks. Health facilities are chronically understaffed, which means that there are not people available to take over and reduce the number of hours that others are working. Even when people are identified as contacts of those who test positive, they are still encouraged to come to work sometimes because of staff shortages. That is the reality we are facing when infection levels are quite low. What will happen if a second wave arrives? There does not seem to be any focus on this. As I understand the reports, the July stimulus is money to guarantee banks and for big businesses, but there is nothing about building up capacity and recruiting healthcare workers in large numbers in order to reach safe staffing levels and create additional capacity in the health service.

The matter has not received much coverage, but I note that the budget of the EU for health was slashed during the recent negotiations. The money that was supposed to be used to pay for stockpiles of ventilators and to assist national health services to deal with Covid-19 was slashed. As stated, this matter has received no coverage. That seems to be reflected in the priorities of this Government, which is not supporting the healthcare workers and the health service that we need to protect us and that will comprise the front line against Covid-19 in the autumn.

The Government will prioritise healthcare and healthcare workers in the context of getting through Covid. We will get through it. We do not just acknowledge but know full well the incredible role that healthcare workers have played in helping the people of this country to come through Covid and that will continue to be the case. We will have a €30 billion deficit at the end of this year because of the enormous expenditure on health. That expenditure will continue right through 2021 as well. Testing has increased significantly, including of all healthcare workers. For example, the HSE has been operating a programme to test all healthcare workers in nursing homes. That will continue on a systemic basis to make sure that we can avoid what happened with the spread of the virus in the nursing home sector and, similarly, in the acute hospital sector.

The stimulus is not about big business and banks. The stimulus is about workers. I am sure the Deputy wants workers' jobs to be preserved and their livelihoods to be improved.

The Government is cutting their payment.

The reason we will have a €30 billion deficit and a substantial stimulus programme is to keep jobs going for workers and to create opportunities, for young people in particular, in terms of activation and work. We are a global economy. Ireland develops well when it can export its goods and services abroad and people buy them. The international scene is not good. It is very important, therefore, that we take measures that can enhance the domestic capacity of our economy during this period, which is all about workers and giving workers a chance. Yes, small companies will benefit and companies will benefit to a certain scale because we want them to survive. Why do we want them to survive? It is because they provide employment to people. There are too many simplistic catch-cry slogans emanating. I have great respect for Deputy Boyd Barrett as a thoughtful parliamentarian, but every now and again we get empty rhetoric that everything is about big business. It is all about workers.

The nurses-----

It is all about workers and it has to be.

I thank the Taoiseach. We are way over time. That concludes Leaders' Questions. As I have said, we are way over time. We need to adhere to the allocated times from now on, please.