Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle agus leis an Aire. As Deputy Kenny has said Sinn Féin will be supporting this legislation in order to give gardaí temporary powers to ensure compliance with regulations designed to manage the Covid-19 pandemic. These regulations must remain temporary in nature and be used not only to tackle that very small minority of rogue operators within the licensed trade sector but also to provide clarity, assurances and support to those licensed traders and to those pubs which have up until this point not been allowed to open. The excuse for forcing them to remain shut has now been lifted because the legislative powers are in place to ensure that those pubs that do not serve food can operate to the same standards and guidelines as those that do. We now need to ensure that this legislation is not just used as a stick by the Government but is also used as a carrot to support the last remaining sector that is being forced to remain closed by Government policy.

Unfortunately, our pubs have not received the necessary supports up until this point. The financial package announced last week by Government was an insulting and pathetic offer to those pubs which are, we must remember, in many instances the heartbeat of our local communities. In many of the local towns and villages that I represent the local pub is the last remaining service because Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have removed all other services, whether it be post offices, Garda stations or whatever. The local pubs are the last remaining vestige of a place where communities can come together, mourn or celebrate together, and are the heartbeats of our local areas. They deserve the support. I hope this legislation will follow from that.

It is a little bit worrying that the only legislation before us, although important, concerns a very small minority of licensed trading operators. This Government, despite successive and extensive requests and appeals by Sinn Féin and others, has refused to bring forward any legislation at all with regard to the meat factories sector, a private enterprise sector that we know has been responsible for a significant number of outbreaks across communities.

It led to additional restrictions in three counties, yet questions relating to individual factories or indeed at a macro level regarding the sector go unanswered by any of the statutory agencies. We depend on press releases from those same factories to get any information whatsoever. I do not trust those factories and many people in those communities do not trust the factories. The Government needs to take control of that situation. One cannot have a situation where important businesses in our communities remain closed and where old men, stalwarts in our community, have to stand on hills or in fields, with binoculars in some instances, in order to be able to see their local GAA club play a championship game. One cannot have a situation where communities are expected to adhere to all these restrictions when the same group of individuals who represent the meat industry in this country continue to go unchecked and unanswerable to anyone. That needs to change.

Sinn Féin will support this legislation but we expect the Government to focus on allowing our pubs to reopen and to start concentrating on the sector that is the cause of so many of the difficulties, which is the meat industry.

See this speech in context