Mr. Liam Herrick:

I thank the Deputy. We are fully supportive of the public health effort and have supported a wide range of the regulations that were introduced over the past 14 months. We fully support the vaccine programme, in the context of which the Government must be congratulated on the great success it is having in promoting public support.

Many of the regulations that have been introduced have been reasonable and proportionate and some have not.

What we have seen on many occasions is that regulations have been introduced which have either contained errors or had unintended consequences which would have been avoided if the Oireachtas had been given a greater role in scrutiny at an earlier point in time. We have seen much good practice and fully acknowledge the Government is acting in good faith in dealing with a grave public health crisis but the Deputy fairly summarises our perspective that for us the question is ultimately about democratic oversight.