I have to take a deep breath today. The Leader will know that my first speech in the Seanad was for the nurses of Ireland. The Taoiseach yesterday and the Minister for Health today showed they must be badly advised given their most recent decision to cancel Christmas leave for nurses and doctors. It has drawn the ire of health workers and the health unions, including the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, the Irish Medical Organisation, IMO, and the Psychiatric Nurses Association, PNA. It is deflecting from the real crisis, including the absence to date of a winter plan and inadequate bed capacity. The trolley crisis and the waiting lists in our health service are not just a Christmas problem but represent a year-round crisis due to the lack of capital investment in public hospitals. There are 500 permanent hospital consultant posts unfilled. There are 2,500 nursing vacancies, with at least 1,000 nurses due to retire this year. The winter plan is now to cancel Christmas for staff. The Leader does not understand-----

The Senator should make a contribution without addressing anybody.

The Senator said "cancel Christmas for staff". That is not what the Taoiseach said it all. The Senator should be fair.

Leader, please. The Leader will be responding later.

Maybe the Leader wants to address all these emails and telephone calls that I have got.

Order, please. The Leader will respond later.

I have got letters from nurses in Australia who said they had no chance of coming back.

Two days-----

Excuse me. Dún do bhéal le do thoil.

The Senator cannot address anybody like that. She must speak through the Chair.

Two days-----

I do not want any interruptions.

On a point of order-----

Nurses will not be used as a-----

The Senator said she got a letter in two days from Australia. That is fantastic.

That is not a point of order.

Correction: it was an email. The Leader should use his brain.

The Senator should speak through the Chair. That was not a point of order. Ciúnas everybody. We should listen to the speaker.

This is to do with the lack of bed capacity and investment. Do Senators know anybody in the system who has not worked 24-7? Many of us gave up our Christmases with our children to go into the hospital. We have almost had our dinners at 6 a.m. to go to the hospital to take care of people, yet we are now told we cannot have Christmas because it is our fault that the system is a failure. The Government is so out of touch and arrogant. The nurses and medics hold the front line and now they are told it is their fault. In March during the snow, we marched for miles to get to work. We stayed in the hospitals overnight to provide care. This is arrogance at its greatest. Does the Government have a clue? It is so out of touch. This will not be taken well. Nobody will come back to this country.

Stop shouting at us.

Nobody will come back to this country with that sort of attitude. Leo and Simon are grinches, bad Santas, bad humbugs.

"He's behind you."

Order, please.

I was thinking of an interview I read in which the Taoiseach said his favourite character, Tiny Tim, should get a job. This paints the Taoiseach as Scrooge. It would really make sense, therefore, that Christmas would be cancelled.

I echo Senator Ardagh's call to have the Minister come to the House to speak about the restriction on families who wish to keep their loved ones in a decent state of well-being and mental health when the latter are in hospital for a long stay. I watched a television programme on this. Two girls from the west were barred from visiting their dad in his final months and did not get to see him again until the day he was dying. As a daughter who spent every day in the nursing home with my father for two years before he passed away, I found the programme extremely horrifying to watch. It merits a conversation in this Chamber. At some level, it is definitely a violation of the human rights of both the family members and the individual in hospital.

I called a number of months ago for a conversation on the national drugs strategy. It has not happened in this House. It has happened in the Dáil. Last month was the 20th anniversary of the opioid treatment protocol. It would be good to have a conversation on the protocol and the strategy this side of Christmas. The working group on drug decriminalisation will, I hope, release its report before Christmas. Therefore, it would be good to have a conversation in the lead-up to publication.

I call Senator Bacik.