Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My thanks to Deputy Pringle. As I mentioned earlier, direct provision is very often substandard. The kind of accommodation we want is at the McMahon standard level, where it is self-catering and where people have their own door. Much of direct provision is substandard and that needs to change. We have brought in good examples of accommodation in recent years, but obviously the whole programme needs to be accelerated by the next Government.

Does it add to racism? I hope it does not. Many communities have welcomed accommodation centres in their towns and villages and have set up friends-of-the-centre groups, for example. It has been good to see that. I do not think it always fuels racism.

What would the alternative look like? The alternative often put forward is that there should be purpose-built accommodation provided by the State to house asylum seekers or built and provided on a non-profit basis by affordable housing bodies or charities. I think we would run into the same problems in communities. That may well be the right model to employ, but the minute a planning application goes in, I can guarantee Deputy Pringle that we would see objections and public meetings. We would have people coming up with all sorts of reasons they do not want a purpose-built, own-door, State-run accommodation centre in their town or village. Would it be any different in terms of the reaction we get from local communities? I do not know but I fear it would not be.

Deputy Pringle referred to the 1 metre-2 metre issue. As I mentioned, we hear different advice from different bodies. We hear different experts say different things. The best information I have read on this is The Lancetpaper published the other day. It is a meta-analysis of approximately 170 different studies that looks at issues like social distancing and masks. What the study says in simple terms is that being a little more than 1 metre away gives a person protection of between 70% to 80%. If we go to 2 metres, the level of protection goes to between 95% and 100%. If we go from 2 meters to 1 metre, it is a risk. We should not pretend that it is not a risk. We have a rough idea of what sort of risk it is, going from about 95% protection to something like 70% or 80%. If we take that risk, I think we should not do it yet. We should suppress the virus more in the community before we are willing to take that risk. We will not be recommending a change as part of phase 2 tomorrow. That is not to say that we might not do so in future.

Interestingly, the paper does a good piece on masks too. There is very strong evidence that they should be worn in healthcare settings but weak evidence that they are valuable in the community setting.

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