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

I thank the Taoiseach for the answer. It is a very welcome development that the North-South Ministerial Council will meet next week. I hope the value of the forum is now widely understood. It is true to say the North-South Ministerial Council and the all-Ireland infrastructure has been neglected for quite some time. I hope the Taoiseach's engagement with the institutions in the North and all the political parties will be positive and forward-looking. I hope that next week, when the North-South Ministerial Council meets, we can finally get some level of coherence in an all-Ireland approach to this Covid-19 emergency.

It should be recalled that for the purposes of animal health, this island operates as a single unit and it is, quite frankly, inexplicable that when it comes to human health, there is controversy around adopting the same approach. My colleague, joint First Minister, Ms Michelle O'Neill, raised her concerns relating to the all-Ireland approach with the Taoiseach in his meeting with her. She specifically instanced with the Taoiseach the area of travel and protections for the island. She informed me of this.

My observation, for what it is worth, is that the previous Government in its caretaker capacity was extremely passive in dealing with the North and the necessity for a single island approach for public health safety. I hope passivity will not be this Government's modus operandibecause we need it to be energetic. We need the impetus to come from Dublin to ensure we get the correct approach. By the way, that does not mean throwing brickbats at Sinn Féin. The Taoiseach may do that if he wishes but I remind him there are five parties to the Executive in the North. That means when he meets representatives of the Alliance Party, the SDLP, the Ulster Unionist Party and others, it is incumbent on the Taoiseach to make the case very strongly of the absolute necessity for the correct island-wide approach to protect the health of our people.

This is not a question of the constitutional issue or really even a jurisdictional matter in the wider sense. This is about public health, biology and a virus that must be contained across the island. The truth is that for any of us to be safe on this island, all of us must be safe.

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