Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I refer in particular to the last part, in which the professor reminded us he had always understood that it was we who set the rules for him, rather than he setting the rules for us, but the correspondence was striking. It stated there was no public health advice anywhere that suggested a two-hour limit for meetings but rather that it was an issue of contact tracing, which the professor then described as a rule of thumb that public health officials had put together. I respectfully suggest there are issues with that and I think Deputy Kelly is correct that we should examine how we look at it in the future. I am aware of one parliament in Europe where 180 MPs turned up for a roll call today. While I do not suggest we do that, we need to look at how we will work this out into the future. I have my concerns about meeting in the Convention Centre and the costs of that. We have to rethink how we set about this. Notwithstanding the advice that has been received, the two-hour rule does not make sense to me as we move on. In the letter we received last week, Professor Cormican stated there was a very low possibility of anything happening to anybody in these circumstances. We are practising social distancing, good hygiene and so on. We need to look at the matter again.

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