Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hope that the Tánaiste desists from the type of sniping that the Taoiseach has described. We need an all-island approach, and I hope that the North-South Ministerial Council meeting next week will provide an opportunity for Dublin to step forward, stop being passive, and to champion that very approach. Our position is well known within the five party Executive, which is that we need every protection for the island as a single unit. That means effective quarantining methods and not placing a form online and championing this as some great transformation and intervention. It is not. It is about testing, tracing, isolating and having effective and robust procedures for those 134,000 people who have arrived on our island. Currently, that is not the case and well the Taoiseach knows it.

In respect of families here and their holiday plans, the Irish Travel Agents Association estimate that €800,000 a day is being lost by consumers. These are the immediate people caught in the crossfire of this. The Government has done precious little to intervene on behalf of those families who do heed the public health advice and choose to holiday at home. I ask again how and when will the Government intervene for these families?

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