David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There was fearmongering about having second lockdowns, when the Minister had to be contradicted again by the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and other front-line Ministers. The Minister was also contradicted by the acting Chief Medical Officer. The Minister also did an interview in which he compared children who are going to school and the dangers and risks associated with that with children on trampolines. Such comments, imagery and mixed messaging, as well as the requirement to have to keep records of what people eat in restaurants and bars, were badly communicated. When there is bad communication, as well as mixed messages, bonkers ideas and Ministers contradicting each other, which happened with the Minister for Health and another Minister when the Minister for Health was trying to explain the most recent guidelines, that does not inspire confidence.

The Minister needs to get back to basics. For me, this is simple and it is being made very complicated by a Government that, for whatever reason, is simply unable to communicate on basic issues. The way in which we protect ourselves and combat this virus is to get back to the simple things of making sure that people do what we know they will do, namely, handwashing, cough etiquette, the wearing of masks as best we can - especially indoors - and all those measures we want individuals to carry out.

We also need a Rolls-Royce testing and tracing regime. The anecdotal evidence, despite the figures we are being presented with, suggests that there are problems and that the turnaround time is not what it should be. We are still not up to the numbers promised to us by the HSE and previous Ministers on this issue in recent times. We are told there is capacity for 100,000 tests per week and yet we are still nowhere near doing that. A testing and tracing regime has to be proactive. It has to be used to ruthlessly pursue the virus and hunt it down, which the Government did not do in meat plants. Rather than pointing the finger of blame at people who had nothing to do with these rising cases, the Government should take responsibility for the mistakes it made in meat plants.

The Government should stop with the absolute nonsense involved in some of the regulations it has brought in and the responses that make no sense whatsoever to people. The Government should allow people to be able to live with this virus and communicate with them as best it can. I can tell the Minister about what has happened in recent times because of that miscommunication, silly decision-making, not listening to the Opposition or stakeholders, not going out and communicating with or talking to people who are affected by this, whether it is hotels, bars, the GAA, the FAI or other sporting or cultural organisations and young people. Young people need to live and not just go to school or college. We have to provide people with the opportunities to live and that means theatres, drama and so on and that has to be done within the guidelines. We are hearing today and yesterday from the Government that we could be opening up pubs in two weeks' time but within hours of that there were newspaper reports in which a Government spokesperson said that may not happen because of the rise in the cases. How many more false dawns will we have with the pubs? It will be an absolute disaster if they are faced with another false dawn because the Government is not getting it right with testing and tracing or with its communication.

If we want people to buy in - and people want to buy in - we will have to do the right thing. By the way, annulling all of the restrictions is not the way forward. I do not want to see packed nightclubs or 50,000 people in a stadium. I do not want to see us taking decisions that would be irresponsible but I want to see responsible measures taken by us in this House that will give people an opportunity to keep themselves and their families safe, protect the front-line health services and be able to go and watch a match, go into a pub to socialise and to be able to live their lives within the rules. That needs to happen quickly and if it does not, the authority of the Government will be further undermined.

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