Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Joe O'Brien. Our first thoughts are with families in nursing homes, where we have seen such a raging epidemic, and in other residential and congregational settings, such as in direct provision or religious orders, where we have heard stories about the number dying in recent weeks. That tragedy and the urgent need to continue to tackle these issues drive us to support the Chief Medical Officer and Government in taking whatever measures are needed to make sure we minimise the loss of life and put in place and implement, with absolute certainty, systems for testing, isolating and tracing at the scale needed to manage the virus and, at the same time, open up our economy. The job of the political system here is to strike a balance between the health imperative and the imperative to have our economy return to some sort of functioning order so we can pay for health and social welfare systems and ensure we can restore and protect our mental health, as well as our physical health, in response to the virus. I absolutely accept what Dr Tony Holohan is saying, which is that we cannot be presumptuous on this and that there is nothing decided yet on opening things up, but we do need to start thinking about and preparing for the economic recovery because it will be as important a part of the management of this crisis as everything else.

I hear people from the construction sector rightly say they are used to managing health and safety and that we should be working with them now to set up the mechanisms by which we can determine how to get workers to and from building sites and operate within building sites. I refer to proper distancing during breaks and to the availability of proper hand-cleansing and other facilities. I hope the sector will be one of the first to return to action. If at any stage we see an increase in viral infection due to increased activity, we will obviously have to scale back again. It is important, however, that we start to get construction workers back to work.

With regard to tourism, one of the biggest difficulties we have at present is the lack of expenditure. Our economy is contracting. At some point over the summer, we will have to see people spending, particularly for the protection of our small businesses and the development and protection of the economy in rural areas, which are so dependent on the tourism sector. Again, we have to be careful about this. We do not yet know the dates on which we expect people to be able to start going on holidays. We will have to manage this in a way that will not result in a pick-up in the virus. Not many from overseas will be coming to Ireland this year but, likewise, we are not going to be going away on our holidays. If we spent our time this summer walking, cycling, swimming, driving and having dinners, it would assist. I read today that the Restaurants Association of Ireland is going to try to set up mechanisms by which we can have facilities in this regard set up in a safe way. It is appropriate for us to start thinking about and planning for some sort of uptake in our economy or life in our country later this summer if the numbers associated with the virus continue to go down. This is important. It is important that we give some signal that there will be a chance for holidays at home this year. Maybe it will be a very different sort of holiday but maybe it will be one that really reminds us what is important and great about our country.

On the international stage, with regard to the meeting of the European Council today, I am glad the Irish Government is continuing to support the issue of eurobonds in response to this crisis. Just as we need a stimulus here to get spending going and produce an economic lift, we need a similar attitude and response at European level.

From my reading of reports in the newspapers today, it seems one of the items that may be on the agenda for consideration, in addition to eurobonds, is the potential for the European Commission to borrow on behalf of the European Union and leverage that for economic recovery. It seems, again from reports in the newspapers today, that the introduction of an EU-wide digital or plastic tax might help to cover future repayments on such lending. The Taoiseach should not be afraid of supporting such initiatives.

An expansion of the EU budget is in our interests. Such an expansion will be difficult for any one country to fund because of the constraints under which we are operating. That Keynesian stimulus and expansionary proposal is one we should support. We should be doing that on a cross-Continent basis, showing solidarity at this time. It is in the interests of our country, the EU and the wider world that institutions such as the European Commission show that they are capable of managing the economic response to the crisis in a way that inspires our people.

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