Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

No. Deputy Mattie McGrath will be in as well. We are discussing the Criminal Justice (Enforcement Powers) (Covid-19) Bill 2020 and a lack of understanding from the Government has brought us to debating this emergency legislation. If the Government had done what we asked it to do at the very start, which was to separate wet pubs from nightclubs, we would not have the problem that it is trying to legislate for today.

In Limerick, 127 wet pubs were closed and 20 pubs reopened that could serve food. In east Limerick there were six pubs and in west Limerick there were 14. There are now 31 pubs open because these extra pubs put in food facilities at their own cost to try to save the business. There are now 22 pubs open in west Limerick and nine open in east Limerick. There are still approximately 100 wet pubs closed. From where I live I would have to travel 15 miles to have a sociable drink. I am not a big drinker but I do like a social occasion where I can meet people.

With a lack of understanding, the Government has sent people from a rural setting to an overpopulated area to have a drink. Basically, they were putting people in line to get Covid-19. A local pub might have ten or 12 people on a weekday and 20 at the weekend, and these people would have stayed in the local area. They would not have had to go anywhere else. However, the Government allowed businesses to open where there was enough footfall to warrant serving food. That was not fair. Again, the Government never thought of rural Ireland. Since the start of this, we have seen how many people in cities broke the rules. If all the pubs were open, people would not need to congregate in the numbers we saw and we would not have the problem of trying to introduce emergency legislation.

I was fully opposed to this Bill earlier but the Government has rowed back as the days have gone on. It now states it will not allow gardaí to enter people's houses, but I do not know if that is the truth. My reading is that the Bill gives power to the Minister to introduce regulations without debate or a vote in the Oireachtas. There must be due process if legislation is to be introduced to the Oireachtas. This cannot solely be down to a Minister. We must debate such matters in the Oireachtas.

I welcome that wet pubs will be allowed to open but the Government caused its problems in the first place by not allowing those pubs to open earlier and treating them in legislation the same way as nightclubs. We saw something similar in nursing homes and respite centres, which were not allowed to open either.

From the very start, the Government has stopped the people in rural Ireland, who have had social distance all their lives, from operating businesses. They have lost everything, including creameries and post offices. Their last option for congregation was the local pub. Older people did not always go for a drink but may have gone for a mineral to meet their neighbours. This Government and its predecessors has taken everything else. They closed down rural Ireland but it is now time to afford equality to the people in rural Ireland. We can see now that all the problems that have arisen since the onset of Covid-19 have been caused by the Government because it would not allow equality between the country and the city. It gave everything to people in cities and large towns because they had footfall and tourist destinations.

This Government has had no regard whatsoever for people in rural settings. It has driven them to overpopulated areas where they are at greater risk of contracting Covid-19.

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