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

The Deputy stated "interests of private profit are allowed to interfere" but that would be the antithesis of what is envisaged. The oversight committee is to be headed by the Secretary General of the Department and it involves other Departments. This is to ensure the process is practical. I will give an example. There was a furore in the House when NPHET advised we should enforce a provision to allow people to enter people's homes to control the numbers in a household. Everybody opposed such a suggestion, saying that civil liberties were at risk. There must be some filtering of advice in terms of how we make it possible.

With a week to go to the opening of schools, there was advice out of the blue from NPHET that we should go ahead with public transport at 50% capacity. The Government could not accept that immediately, and it did not, but we said we would try to follow that advice over time. We had been working with public health authorities on protocols to bring children safely to schools, including the identification of seat numbers for kids and all that. There needs to be some fine-tuning of advice when it comes to the practical implementation of it. We must co-ordinate Departments to ensure they are linked with stakeholders.

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