With figures increasing over the past week in respect of Covid-19, we all know now that we are at a crossroads. I want to make a couple of points to the Taoiseach and get his response. Dr. Ronan Glynn said we are going to be living with this for the next six to nine months and that it is going to be a very difficult period. I am glad that he referred to that length of time because people needed to hear it. I have said before in this House that when Covid came, it was the best time for us, as we had spring and then summer. We are now facing into a very difficult six months.

Over the weekend, I met Mairéad, who is over the age of 70. The one question she had for me was whether she would be able to see her only child, her daughter, who is working in London, at Christmas.

I was taken by that because the whole lot of us in the political system, including the Opposition and the Government, need to sign a contract from now until Christmas with the public to say that we will work together and follow a roadmap, which the Government will lead, and then Mairéad might see her daughter at Christmas. Then we will need to do another three-month contract from New Year's Day until St. Patrick's Day so that we can break the back on the difficult six months that are ahead of us. I ask the Taoiseach to commit to something like that. None of us have all of the answers but we need to break this down for the public because they are fatigued and worn out. We need to do it in bite sizes from here until Christmas and then from New Year's Day until St. Patrick's Day. I ask the Taoiseach to consider what I have just said and the Labour Party is happy to sign up to working with the Government on that.

I was taken by what was produced in the winter plan last week. Beds are an important issue but there is no point in having the beds if we do not have the staff. We need to be ingenious in how we will get all of these nurses, doctors and consultants in such a short space of time.

The other issue I want to raise with the Taoiseach is non-Covid healthcare. I have deep concerns about this, especially after talking to people working at different levels in the HSE over the last two weeks. I know the Taoiseach will not have the answer to this today - I am not trying to catch him out. I ask him to do a comparative analysis of coronary care and cancer care to see how many people are being treated and diagnosed month-on-month compared to last year. I would like to know the answer to that because I do not know what it is. Anecdotally, we have all heard of issues with the volume of people who may not be diagnosed this year and that is worrying because we all know that the longer it goes on the less chance one has of survival, particularly with those seriously acute conditions. Could the Taoiseach provide that information to us? I will ask the Taoiseach this question again next week in order that he can provide the answer. I will give him a week to come up with the answer.

Given what Dr. Glynn has said, will the Taoiseach consider a roadmap that is based around two pivotal dates - Christmas and St. Patrick's Day - so that the political class can collectively look at supporting that to get people through the next six months? Will the Taoiseach carry out an analysis of non-Covid critical health issues so that we can see whether we are dealing with them appropriately, as we tried our best to do last year, for example?

I thank the Deputy for his query and I would commit to that. I have publicly said on a number of occasions that the implications of Covid will be with us right through 2021. We need to take it in bite sizes and the immediate necessity is for all of us to take stock on our individual behaviours in reducing social contacts and the level of congregation in which we engage. This is essential to get the numbers down and in some counties and cities to avoid having to be put on level 3, but it is within our grasp. Limerick and other areas have proven that by getting the numbers down. Cities are volatile at the best of times when it comes to Covid because one event or incident can lead to a significant outbreak, as we saw in Cork with restaurants and pubs in one or two areas leading to approximately about 70 cases of Covid-19. The impact of that on our health services is significant.

I share the Deputy's concern about non-Covid services such as coronary care and cancer care but it is essential that we tell people we want to continue non-Covid health services, to get waiting lists down and to improve diagnostics and speed at getting diagnostics. However, a lot of that depends on our behaviour with Covid because the greater the number of Covid patients we have to admit to our hospitals and ICUs, the less capacity we will have to deal with coronary care, cancer care and other key ailments and diseases, etc., that affect the major organs of the body. There is a contract and an objective there. The better we behave collectively and individually, the better we give capacity and space to our front-line workers and hospitals to deal with non-Covid healthcare. The winter initiative is about providing unprecedented resources of €600 million over the next six months to alleviate capacity constraints. It is also aimed at dealing with the resumption of health services and enabling diagnostics and operations to take place in parallel with our approach to Covid.

That is the objective and it very much depends on keeping the lid on increasing cases and suppressing the virus insofar as we can. I urge people to do that so people can see their children and grandchildren at Christmas in a meaningful way. Whether they can will depend on our capacity to suppress the virus and get the numbers down and stabilised over the next number of weeks. It remains the Government's position.

On the winter initiative, we are also looking at increased and enhanced community provision around community diagnostics and around the prevention area in terms of community respiratory clinics. This is to prevent people having to be admitted to hospitals in the first instance and particularly to accident and emergency departments. That is our overarching agenda, along with the home care hours. There will be a very substantial number of home care packages this year.

I say the following genuinely and I hope the Taoiseach takes it in that spirit. We need a new contract with the people for the next six months broken into two blocs, as I said. It would enable the lady I mentioned to see her daughter. I welcome the Taoiseach's comments.

Nevertheless I am concerned about what the Taoiseach said about non-Covid health services. We cannot have a position of robbing Peter to pay Paul. We have to diagnose people with cancer or coronary issues. Capacity issues arise because of Covid-19 but we cannot have one or the other, especially when it comes to issues like those I mentioned. It cannot be one or the other; we must deal with both. Otherwise, the number of people who will die from non-Covid diseases will be more than those who die from Covid-19. I suspect that could be the case already but we do not know. Honestly, I do not know and neither does the Taoiseach. It is why I am asking him to revert with those figures.

I am saying this genuinely as too many consultants and people working in the HSE have said the same to me that I have decided to say this to the Taoiseach in the Dáil. I have thought about this for a long time and we need the analysis to ensure we are managing our resources in the best way.

I agree with the Deputy on our engagement with the public over the next three months and the three months after that. By the way, we can stabilise the numbers and get them down. We will do our best at Government level. I know the deputy Chief Medical Officer and his team will do likewise, as will the HSE. This is important.

We know from experience that too many people up to now and in previous winters were in acute beds for far too long. When the acute phase of treatment was over, hospitals found it very difficult to find suitable placements, particularly when it came to rehabilitation. Some 631 additional rehabilitation beds will be provided up to April 2021 as a key mechanism to ensure people can leave hospital promptly when their treatment is over to go to a suitable placement for treatment afterwards. Approximately 4.76 million additional home care hours will be provided, which is also important, as are the additional acute beds in general hospitals and additional intensive care unit capacity.

We will also utilise the private sector for diagnostics and operations for public patients over the next number of months. I take the Deputy's point and the objective is to manage Covid-19 while also dealing with the non-Covid cases. In the original lockdown period, for a variety of reasons, we could not do that but on this occasion we will go for it and attempt to do it. Its success will be dependent on strict adherence to Covid-19 guidelines and getting the numbers down.