Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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Obviously every crisis produces its own vocabulary, and the word that this crisis has produced, which seems to instill fear in the Irish people, and I think it probably also instills fear in people throughout Europe and the rest of the world, is this term of "a lockdown". As the witness has indicated, that is a legal measure that the state can introduce for what it believes to be the purpose of trying to reduce the spread of the disease. I ask the witness, legally, in the United Kingdom, is there a basis under the Public Health Act to effect a lockdown, and if there is, what does the witness believe is the impact and the success of a lockdown in terms of suppressing this disease? Or does it merely delay the spread of it?