Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have a concern as we go into August and September. I imagine the schools will be back in some fashion, although that is a whole other debate. Society will feel like it is moving even further towards reopening and we may feel further away psychologically from the pandemic. I want to continue to hammer home the need for the Government to be ten steps ahead of where society is as we head into the winter. We are going to have a re-emergence of seasonal 'flu; we always do and it always puts massive pressure on our health system. If Covid comes back it will double or treble that pressure. I do not want to have to wear a face mask on public transport or in congregated settings for the rest of my life.

However we need to get through this winter season. Maybe in the future we will need a traffic light system where if flu levels or Covid levels reach a particular level in our acute hospitals, the public are warned that it is amber or red and people should wear their masks on public transport, etc. Perhaps that is where we will go in the future, but in winter 2020-21 we need to protect our transport workers. We need to protect all our workers. There are workers in shops who have been told by their bosses not to wear masks. That is happening and it should not. They are sitting ducks during their eight-hour shifts because anyone can walk in with or without a mask. They need to be protected and we need to hammer the message home to employers that if they want increased footfall in their stores they need to look after their workers and protect them. All this will help to protect society and prevent our front-line health workers from having to go through what they have been through in the last months again.

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