I met today with a group of healthcare workers who have been living with long Covid since the early stages of the pandemic. They are utterly distraught with how they have been treated by the Government after having their special Covid leave with pay cut on New Year's Eve. The Department of Social Protection will not recognise long Covid as an occupational injury for these workers because it says that it is not possible to establish with confidence that the disease has been contracted through a person's occupation and not through community transmission. Yet, these healthcare staff were receiving special Covid leave with pay for five to six years on the basis that they contracted the virus at work. Also, the State rightly paid €1.7 million in compensation to families of healthcare workers who died after contracting Covid in the workplace.

The Taoiseach told my colleague, Deputy Rice, in December that, "At some stage, some resolution of this has to happen on a sustainable basis." Yet, all he has done after meeting a group of these workers in June last year is pass on the same detached bureaucratic responses from the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill. Will the Taoiseach intervene on behalf of these workers? Why is this cohort of healthcare workers with long Covid not having the reality of workplace transmission of their condition recognised?

I did more than that. When I met people in June, I advocated and intervened to get it extended to December.

That was already decided.

This is not a back and forth, Deputy.

As the Deputy knows, it had not actually been decided.

It had.

No, it had not. I understand it is a genuine case but I do not-----

Their condition is-----

This is not a back-and-forth exchange.

The Deputy always has an attitude of trying to put a sting and have a go at people all the time. The more important point is that the Labour Court recommended a final extension in June and we extended it to December. Like others, I met people, survivors and those with long Covid. This does not mean supports end. Rather, staff who remain unfit to return to work will move into the public service sick leave scheme, ensuring continuity of care and financial protection. That scheme provides for payment of 92 calendar days on full pay in a rolling one-year period, followed by 91 calendar days on half pay subject to an overall maximum of 183 calendar days of paid sick leave on a rolling four-year period.