Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said in her statement that red alerts are rare but if they are so rare, surely we have enough time to plan properly. My mum is 72 years old and is a home helper. She did not know what to do over the weekend but she knew that she had to get to the house to help the family. We did not have a structure in place and were putting people of all ages under pressure to turn up to work for State bodies when the State itself had issued a red alert. On the one hand, we were telling people to stay at home but on the other hand, we were telling them to go to work if necessary. That is criminal.

We are playing with peoples' lives because the Government would not be able to organise the proverbial session in the distillery. The Government must get things right and get a grip on this or people will die when we get the next red warning.

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