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

On face masks, let us give the people of Ireland credit. Everybody in here talks about confusion. There was no confusion among the people when we brought in regulations to make mandatory the wearing of masks on public transport and in shops. As Taoiseach, I pushed hard to make that happen. The compliance rate is 90%. Last April, only 16% of people were wearing masks. That is the answer to the far right. I agree with most of what Deputy Barry said in terms of the far right. The Government has nothing to do with it. What those involved are doing is wrong.

Deputy Boyd Barrett raised the issue of the zero Covid strategy. That is not our position. We do not agree with that strategy.

It involves severe lockdowns and let us not pretend it does not. The acting Chief Medical Officer has been very clear that it is not his view or that of NPHET that it is a realistic approach or strategy. Our strategy is to live with Covid, keep people safe, protect health, maintain economic resilience and jobs and restore public services with regard to keeping schools, crèches and higher education institutions open. We are seeking to restore health services while considering quality of life issues around the arts and sports and trying to keep games and live performances going as best we can within the restrictions. We want to support community well-being on the ground as well as mental health, which is critical. That will increasingly become an issue as the pandemic continues and evolves.

Lab capacity is an issue with testing. The numbers in the plan are to have approximately 3,000 people employed for testing purposes, including swabbers, contact tracers and the many more people behind the scenes who help in the administration of the work. There is a clinical need for call one, giving people results, and public health authorities insist on that. I take Deputy Kelly's point, which I have made to the Health Service Executive, HSE, that we need a permanent workforce and that we should not redeploy from within. That is how the process started and we came from a very low base when the pandemic started. I consistently made the point and it is now happening, with recruitment under way, with more people coming to the contact tracing side in particular.

The plan has been elderly-proofed, as it were, and we respect the elderly as, arguably, these are the cohort of people who have adhered most to the guidelines issued by public health authorities. The advice from NPHET at this stage is to encourage people in Dublin not to travel outside Dublin if possible. That is what NPHET has said at this stage.

The differences between the Covid-19 and health committees are clear. The Covid-19 committee deals with all aspects of Covid-19, and that is why the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform attend the Covid-19 committee, along with the Minister for Health and ministerial advisers. It is exclusively about all aspects of Covid-19 and it would have co-ordinated the plan published today. The health committee deals with broader health matters, including the winter initiative, as well as screening, health capacity and so on.

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