Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am sure the Taoiseach would agree that we need to focus on giving stronger public health messages to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus because the indications are that many people across all age groups are not hearing the messages. That is the case for various reasons, which I will not go into now. The Taoiseach spoke at the weekend about using influencers and I hope he will go ahead and do that quickly. It is important that we use influencers for all age, interest and ethnic cohorts. I would like to see the Government doing that quickly.

Would the Taoiseach also agree that there is a role for cross-party messaging to urge people to comply with public health advice? Ideally, we would have done that last Friday but it is not too late. An initiative should be taken by this House in that regard.

If compliance rates can be raised substantially, we have the prospect of bringing down the current critically high rates. The aim should be to do that in the quickest possible time, ideally in the next three weeks, but certainly within a reasonable period.

I wish to raise a wider issue with the Taoiseach. What strategy should be pursued in the medium and long term? There has been little or no political or public discussion in that regard. There are essentially three possible strategies, namely, herd immunity, zero or near elimination and what we are doing. The five-level plan is a good framework because it distinguishes rates and responses in different areas but it is not a strategy. We are doing a certain level of testing. There are few controls on flights. We are continuing with public health messaging about mask wearing and social distancing but that is clearly not enough. Our response to a surge is a lockdown or a close-down. That can work in the short term but is not a sustainable strategy even in the medium term because the price being paid is simply too high and we will not keep the public with us.

Should we not consider the pros and cons of alternative strategies? There is no perfect strategy by any means and there are winners and losers in every approach but we need public and political discussion on which is the optimal way of managing the virus. The way we manage the virus, the strategy that we use, should be reached through open discussion, based on evidence and taking a broad view of what is in our health, social and economic interest. It is unfortunate that there is no forum for that at the moment. We need to reach consensus. Things like cutting the pandemic unemployment payment and extending protections for tenants are political issues but agreeing the best way of managing and controlling the virus should not be political issues.

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