Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

It is important to do as other Deputies have done, which is to draw attention at a time when we are rightly applauding and pointing to the role that Defence Forces staff can play, to point to the reality that these people have been underpaid and under-appreciated for a long time, and to remember the extreme exploitation of Defence Forces personnel that takes place. As 85% of them are on less than the average industrial wage and more than 120 rely on the working family payment simply to survive, that has to end. It cannot merely be a rhetorical commitment to what a great job these personnel are doing, and similarly the nurses etc. If the Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, is serious about the importance of these roles, he has to pay these personnel properly and he has to give them the right to be organised in a trade union.

Workers need to be provided with everything that they need to do their jobs safely. That means Defence Forces personnel and all the other workers on the front line being given access to the personal protective equipment that they need, and that is not currently happening. I will read a message I got from a health worker in Tallaght Hospital yesterday. She states:

I work in a hospital. Today we had ambulance men come onto the wards several times to bring patients in or collect them to go to another place. They had no PPE when dealing with Covid-19 patients. They were told the hospitals have to give it to them. We do not even have enough to use because of how quickly the virus is growing. I think this is disgraceful to put the paramedics lives in danger like this.

Also, our PPE is not good enough. [There are] no surgical hats, no visors, just ordinary masks - not the right ones and we are told they cannot get them.

We need to support those who are fighting the virus on the front line. We need to ensure they have the masks, gloves and other protections they need. The same goes for other essential workers in supermarkets and delivery companies. They need to have the screens, hand sanitisers, masks and every other piece of equipment they need. We need to decisively put public health ahead of private profit and private property where it comes to ensuring that happens. Weeks ago in France, they requisitioned PPE to ensure that those who needed it got it first. They also put price controls on hand sanitiser to stop the profiteering. The price gouging and profiteering I highlighted a couple of weeks ago is still ongoing. I got an email this morning telling me that a small bottle of hand sanitiser that was previously on sale for 99 cent in January is now on sale for €8 at the moment. Similarly, there has been a massive increase in the price of face masks. The Government has the power under the Consumer Protection Act 2007 to introduce price controls at the stroke of a pen. It should do so for hand sanitiser and PPE. We need to requisition private supplies of PPE so it can be directed to where it is needed now. We need to redirect production to make testing equipment, PPE and ventilators as quickly as possible. If not, workers will again be left with no choice but to take action like those workers in An Post in Dublin 15 who last Monday refused to go out because they did not have the hand sanitiser they needed and did not want to put themselves and the communities they served at risk. They did the right thing by refusing to go out. Other workers who take similar action will also be doing the right thing. I appeal to An Post management to reverse the decision not to pay them for the work they had to do on Wednesday to make up for the backlog as a result of the correct decision they made on the Monday. These workers should be applauded for protecting themselves and their families and communities, not penalised by An Post.

We need emergency action to protect workers, renters and those with mortgages. Nobody should lose their livelihood or home because they take proper precautions to avoid the coronavirus. Nobody should end up in arrears on their rent because they cannot go to work. Landlords have been given a break on their repayments to the banks. Renters must also be given a break. We need an amnesty for rents and mortgages for all those affected by the crisis. They should be written off. This is not a time for half measures. We must have a complete ban on evictions. The Government proposes a half ban - stopping new evictions but proposing to allow them to go ahead if the RTB says they can. It is not good enough. Nobody should be made homeless during this emergency and nobody should be made homeless after the emergency either due to rent arrears that build up during this crisis. That would be nothing more than a brief stay of execution. I have an amendment to ensure a complete ban on evictions and I urge others to support it to clearly put public health before private profit.

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