Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is a fairly difficult question for the Taoiseach but one that the public wants asked today as we return from the summer recess. What is the Government's plan for Covid? Are we going to suppress it? Are we going to try to contain it? Are we going to try to eliminate it? Covid arrived in Ireland at the best time from the perspective of our climate, but we are now heading into six months of grave difficulty. The public needs to know the Government's plan. The Taoiseach has had all summer to think about it, so I presume he will have an answer. The people need to have a vision. The previous Taoiseach set out a vision or roadmap. Will the Taoiseach do so now in reply to me?

There are 221 people on trolleys, which is a signal, as it is only 2 September. What will it be like on 2 December? How will we ensure that the elderly in this country have a life to live? We face into this for at least another year or year and a half, and maybe longer. They must be allowed to live. How will we ensure that people with disabilities, the most vulnerable in our society, have a life to live, access to treatments and the stimulation that they need?

With that in mind, yesterday, the Labour Party published a Bill to provide sick leave and parental leave for workers. I ask the Taoiseach to support this wholeheartedly. The acting Chief Medical Officer and the chief executive of the HSE have both called for this. Ireland is one of only five countries, along with Cyprus, Denmark, Greece and Portugal, which does not have this on a statutory basis. We cannot have a situation where workers going into meat plants or other settings take paracetamol or Calpol to hide their temperature. If they have a choice between going to work with a symptom of Covid or not getting paid, it is a fairly stark choice. That needs to be eliminated for the workers and for society. The Government must do this. There is no choice when it comes to our position with the virus. Otherwise, the Government cannot have credibility if it asks other counties to go into lockdown, as it did with the three counties which have done so, without ensuring there is sick pay for low-paid workers who have a very stark choice of whether to go into work. Of course they should not do so but they would not get paid otherwise.

We must also ensure that all parents and guardians who have children going back to school in these weeks, and this week 30 children in one school had to leave, know they can get paid for the duration of time the school is closed.

What alternative have they got? What is the plan? Second, will the Taoiseach ensure in respect of what is an absolutely essential issue as far as we are concerned and about which we have written to all political parties to ask for support-----

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