Mr. Padraig Cribben:

On the issue of insurance, essentially, the insurers have stated that they have no liability in respect of Covid-19 in the context of business interruption insurance. That is the starting point. The question then arises of what happens if there is an outbreak of Covid-19 on a premises or a person takes a claim against a business on the basis of a belief that he or she contracted the virus on the premises. What we are seeing is that it is being specifically written into the policy of those renewing their insurance that they will have no coverage in respect of Covid-19. Effectively, if there is an issue related to Covid-19 on the premises, the business is on its own. The only potential defence a person would have would be that he or she had followed the guidelines.

This issue goes deeper than that. Significant insurance reform is needed. I am glad the programme for Government specifically mentions insurance reform. Mr. Fenn referred earlier to a particular document needing to be torn up and recalibrated. That is what needs to happen with the book of quantum because we have the highest level of awards in Europe. That is one key element which needs to be addressed. Another key element which needs to be examined is the duty of care. Essentially, if a person walks into a premises this evening, the owner of the premises has an almost absolute duty of care towards that person.

There is nothing about personal responsibility. That personal responsibility needs to be taken on board. Legislation needs to be put in place to underpin a significant change in respect of the duty of care.

Deputy Matthews asked who was responsible for policing the guidelines. I saw a headline in one newspaper during the week. It was very much a case of pass-the-parcel. No one was accepting responsibility, from the HSA to the HSE to the Garda etc. Essentially, what happens in that case is that it falls on the individual publicans to decide to implement, as best they can, the guidelines. The problem is that "as best they can" might not be good enough if an inspector walks in and takes the view the guidelines are not being followed. It would be helpful if there were clear guidelines on who the police are in this situation. Our understanding all along was that it was the HSA, but certainly on the basis of some media speculation the authority is a little shy in this area.

As for adherence to the guidelines, there are a great many of them. We should bear in mind that the guidelines for the pub sector that opened yesterday ran to 23 pages. That is on top of another 23 or 24 pages of guidelines that were in the 5 May document for the general opening of businesses. Trying to distil the language in 46 pages down to a small number is something of a challenge. It places quite an onus on business owners, who are already anxious about their capability to survive. They are already anxious about their employees and customers and viability, as well as what they have to put in place. This is putting extraordinary stress on operators in the market. To a certain extent, this is unfair when there are no clear guidelines. The guidelines are sometimes ambiguous, which is fine but there are no clear guidelines on who is implementing them in the sense that if I have an issue I can go to that person to look for guidance.