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

First, I note that Deputy McDonald was saying last week that it was reckless for people to travel - that was her position - and that the Government was adopting a reckless policy generally. She was dead set against any travel whatsoever, but has obviously changed position within a week. Equally, the line now being trotted out is that the Government closed the economy. The interim Government with the support of Deputy McDonald, my support and the support of every other party in the House agreed that there had to be a lockdown to protect human health and the safety of the people. There is a great deal of shallow propaganda emanating from the Opposition now. Somehow now it is some Government over there that closed everything down. We all know why things were closed down. The response was to put 600,000 people on the pandemic unemployment payment, which I believe was a good and genuine response to try to help people deal with the loss of employment. There was also the wage subsidy scheme. At one stage, there were 1.1 million people on subsidy from the State.

See this speech in context