Fresh statistics released to me regarding primary care services in Mayo are very concerning. Last year only 31 out of 150 Mayo children under five years of age received psychology support. During Covid, when the Taoiseach was Taoiseach, speech and language therapists across the country were redeployed to vaccination centres and for contact tracing. As a result of this, in Mayo in 2021, only 400 children were seen in primary care for speech and language therapy supports. To put that in context, generally there are thousands of children seen in Mayo. Does the Taoiseach accept in hindsight that this was a mistake? Does he accept that many children suffered during those years? Does he accept that there is still immense pressure in relation to primary care, CDNTs and children waiting for crucial therapies across Mayo and many other counties?

Covid was an emergency. Before we got vaccination, people were dying and the fundamental objective of Government was to protect life and then to protect livelihoods. That was it, and all the stops had to be pulled out to enable us to do that.

The children can wait.

I do not accept that five years on the Deputy can casually, at such remove, make such statements as he just made. If we did not get vaccination, and I presume the Deputy supports vaccination, we would have been in deep trouble and continuing trouble as a country, and more and more lives would have been lost.