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

Unity of purpose on all fronts is essential in dealing with a pandemic of this scale and severity, including within this House. The Deputy has consistently sought in recent times to undermine not just the efforts of the Government but those of the HSE in the context of acute hospital care, testing capacity and so forth.

The Deputy has now misrepresented the telephone conversation she had with me yesterday when she said I could not give her assurances. That is not true and she has no right to misrepresent a phone call of that importance. I took her in good faith. The Deputy made clear to me that it would be catastrophic to move to level 5. She could not understand how we could move from level 2 to level 5 and I agreed with her on that.

I take seriously the advice from NPHET about the exponential growth of case numbers. The situation out there is serious in terms of the growth of cases. That is why we have moved to level 3 in accordance with the Government's graduated plan, which involved discussions with NPHET prior to its formulation and publication. I believe we have an obligation to the public and to industry, business and jobs. There is an expectation they should have a sense of knowing when we could move from level 2 to level 3, level 3 to level 4 and level 4 to level 5.

Given that the advice we received on Thursday was to basically stay at level 2 outside of counties Dublin and Donegal, to then move on Sunday to level 5 would have been an enormous shock to people and jobs. The Government must take wider issues into consideration. To be fair to NPHET and the Chief Medical Officer, CMO, they have to advise on public health grounds. We take that advice seriously and I have great respect for the CMO and NPHET. I have known the CMO for a long time and served with him during my time as Minister for Health. At that stage, he was deputy CMO and worked with me on the SARS-CoV-2 situation.

What must also be acknowledged, and I believe the CMO does, is simply that the impact of moving to level 5 would have been severe on the lives of many people. I spoke to him before the Cabinet decision because it is not something I recommended to the Cabinet or that the Cabinet decided upon lightly as one wants a common approach to this. We know from our analysis of the pandemic to date that lockdowns affect lower paid people, those in lower income groups and the marginalised more. When schools close, disadvantaged students lose out. Notwithstanding that we have provided for the continuation of education at level 5, there is no guarantee that would happen. One must foresee all eventualities. Disadvantaged children suffered most during the lockdown when schools were closed and, likewise, in terms of income streams, impact on employment, workers and young people. Young people do not have savings to fall back on and will suffer enormously in a level 5 scenario. These are serious and profound decisions with profound impacts on society and the economy.

The Deputy said the country was not ready because of cuts to services. That is not the case. It is the enormity of what a lockdown does. We are already looking at a budget next week when we will have a substantial deficit of well over €20 billion. We are projecting similar figures for the entirety of 2021. The intervention to support people has been unprecedented. At one stage, more than 1 million people were on the Government payroll during the lockdown. We are looking at hundreds of thousands of people being made unemployed once we get to level 5, so it is not unreasonable for Government to take stock before deciding to go to that level in one fell swoop knowing the implications it would have on economic sustainability in the longer term.

Already pandemic unemployment payments have cost about €3.6 billion which is fine. It is vital and just. It will move to €5.2 billion. Yesterday we decided at this stage not to move to level 5, but it is in all our hands collectively to avoid having to go to level 4 and level 5. The only way we can do that is by ensuring we contain the virus by our individual behaviours and our collective behaviour.

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