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

In the past three months, this pandemic has claimed the lives of nearly 2,200 people on this island. It is with their families and friends that our first thoughts must be today and we must also remember the nearly 40 people who are in intensive care units today because of Covid-19.

The progress of the disease in Ireland has been severe, and in some areas it has been worse than in most comparable countries. An unprecedented and rapidly evolving public health emergency leads to mistakes being made, and there is no question that mistakes were made here and in many countries. Once we are through the pandemic, we will have to take a deep and urgent look at the lessons we should learn. No full understanding will be possible until at least most of Europe reports that the immediate danger has fully passed. At that stage, we will be able to see a comprehensive like-with-like comparison of figures and the type of detailed scientific work which is needed to explain how a single virus can have radically different impacts in different places and on different groups.

It is important to say that from early March onwards, not only have hard questions from politicians and journalists been vitally important in challenging gaps but this situation remains so, as we know from the questions early on about testing, personal protective equipment, PPE, and so on. Those questions were valid and they raised issues. There should have been greater transparency early on in terms of the outbreaks and where clusters manifested. More information should have been given.

Today our focus must be on having a substantive discussion as to where Ireland goes from here and how quickly we can move to restore as much normality as possible. From the first moments of this pandemic, my party and I have been clear in saying that the primary consideration of policy must be to implement public health advice. We have also been clear, however, in saying that there are many options possible while respecting this advice. Today, more than at any point in the past three months, the legitimate options for opening closed parts of our social, cultural and economic life are larger than ever. It is deeply unfortunate that the Government has settled into a kind of rigid approach to deciding on changes and steps. As predicted three weeks ago by most parties here, we have seen three weeks of on and off-the-record briefings as to what might be done, all leading up to a high-profile announcement tomorrow, to be followed by an already booked marketing campaign. This approach is causing some difficulties, and people in every part of the country are now reporting confusion as to what measures are actually in place. The habit of non-stop briefing of decisions yet to be made means that the difference between the headlines and the guidelines grows significantly by the day.

We need a bit of reality in our discussions today. When the Taoiseach articulates the position at tomorrow's press conference, we need to hear a far more comprehensive explanation of the current status of the pandemic and the detailed rationale for the restrictions which remain in place. Unfortunately, in a number of communities we see examples of restrictions being broken. There was the well-publicised situation in Cork, where a number of students booked houses in a particular area of the city, namely, College Road and Magazine Road, and there were quite significant house parties, leading to socially distanced protests from residents in the area. This is happening at an alarming rate. There is simply no doubt that compliance is fraying. The biggest problem with this is that it is highly divisive. The majority continues to fully respect the guidelines, and the tension between those who ignore the guidelines and those who feel a threat to their health cannot be ignored. In many respects, the restrictions are more onerous on those who are complying with them. There are people who want to comply literally with them and are doing so. Then they watch others who have more or less dispensed with compliance with a lot of guidelines. The spirit of being in this together can only be protected if we get everyone back onto the same agenda.

While we cannot be guided only by practice in other countries, it falls to our Government to explain the circumstances when the policies we pursue differ significantly from those in other countries. Absurdly, it is easier for an Irish person to plan a holiday in much of Europe than it is to plan one here. A range of countries this week signalled their intention to be ready to quickly lift travel restrictions. Their tourism industries have begun working on the assumption that travel from Ireland will be possible without quarantine before the high season. Yesterday it was announced that a review of the aviation sector by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Shane Ross, will be prepared. This is welcome, but what is borderline ridiculous is that it is scheduled to take at least five weeks to complete.

Smaller businesses continue to bear the brunt of the restrictions, which remain severe in the context of their operations, and there is no clarity as to whether or how they can survive. In the hairdressing industry, for example, a lot of anecdotal evidence is now emerging of a black economy developing, of people just availing of hairdressing services informally and of the legitimate operators being marginalised as a result. Greater engagement is required in that regard.

There is a growing divide between a message which says things are going well and another which tells us that Ireland is not yet ready to follow other countries. It is important that in tomorrow's announcement the Government explains - and I would like the Taoiseach to explain - the exact position on the five tests for reopening which NPHET recommended to it in April. The first test is the general progress of the disease. According to the briefings, the disease is under control and the reproduction number is significantly lower than in many countries that have largely reopened. The community spread of the disease in recent weeks has been very small and dramatically lower than it was in March or April. If community transmission is that low, many of the travel restrictions in place do not make as much sense as they did when they were originally introduced.

There are 1,300 active cases of Covid-19 at the moment, meaning that 95% of the total number of positive tests are no longer active cases. What exactly is the specific benchmark for the progress of the disease that has to be reached before most restrictions can be raised?

The second test is a healthcare capacity and resilience test. Today, the system is dealing with less than one quarter of the cases it was handling at the height of the pandemic. The Government and public health officials have repeatedly stated that the capacity and resilience exist.

The third test has also been achieved. According to the Government the capacity to test and trace is - we have repeatedly been told - in place. In fact, there has been significant excess testing capacity.

The fourth test is the ability to shield at-risk groups. This has not been fully outlined. However, it appears that the policy here and internationally relates to advice from people in high-risk groups concerning their behaviour. This is not relevant to the bulk of restrictions in place today.

The final question - increasingly one of great concern - is the risk of secondary morbidity or people who may die because of other illnesses caused by, or not diagnosed or treated because of, pandemic-related restrictions. No data on this have been published, but we know that the numbers attending for diagnostic procedures have fallen dramatically, as have those attending medical appointments. Today, roughly 1,000 beds in our public acute hospital system are empty and close to 50% of the capacity of private hospitals was unused as of Monday. Unless we are to believe that something radical has changed in the progress of other diseases and the importance of early detection and treatment, there is now no doubt that we are facing into more people's lives being in danger because of the lower levels of medical services being accessed.

Is léir go bhfuil an dealramh ar an scéal go bhfuil daoine ag fulaingt anois le galair eile agus nach bhfuil na seirbhísí sláinte ar fáil dóibh, mar shampla, daoine le hailse, le galair chroí agus a lán galar eile. Tá dainséar ann go mbeidh saol na ndaoine i mbaol gan na seirbhísí seo, agus is léir go bhfuil plean tábhachtach uainn agus go bhfuil géarghá ann anois plean cuimsitheach a chur i bhfeidhm chun déileáil leis an bhfadhb seo.

In addition, we need to understand the growing evidence of serious mental health and psycho-social problems emerging in many countries. The World Bank and the OECD have outlined evidence of a profound gender basis for this issue, with women carrying a far heavier economic burden.

We need clarity about how exactly the five tests are being implemented. The public deserves the full details. If it is the case that the National Public Health Emergency Team and the Government believe that Ireland is behind other countries for a reason, that reason needs to be outlined in detail, not in generalities.

As I have said here every week, the failure to provide any assurances to State companies and institutions about their finances is unacceptable. Those in public transport and higher education, for example, are facing new deficits of an unprecedented scale, but they have received no support. In many cases they are now reading anonymous briefings about how they need to look after themselves. This has to stop. I have consistently made the point that third level education is in a real crisis because of the depletion of revenues from sources they have increasingly relied on in recent years. To me, third level education and research are key to economic recovery and sustained economic development in this country. They always have been. The responses so far from the Department have been unacceptable in terms of the lack of engagement of any kind.

We still have roughly 1 million people on some form of state support for their income. We have thousands of businesses and entire industries which do not know what they are facing into. We have a growing divide in the population between the majority who are silently abiding by all the restrictions and others who are not. We also have an unexplained divide between measures taken here and those taken in comparable countries. We need full transparency. We need our Government to give all the details behind its decisions. We need it to understand that the only way of retaining public support for restrictions is to be far more open about the exact basis for the choices that are being made.

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