Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to take up my slot to speak as others do not. I will not be agreeing with this vote this evening, tomorrow or whenever it is. It means that the Government is now moving from a co-operation phase to a surveillance and oversight phase to enforce Covid-19 compliance. People are scared. The elderly people are on their own and are scared alive of the media reports on top of them every minute and hour about the numbers and those who are dying every day. Does the Minister realise that the number of deaths is down 12% compared to last year? There is a shift in demographics.

I have full respect for Covid-19 and its dangers but we have certainly gone too far because the Government is not sticking to the basics. The tracking and tracing has not been done right nor has testing. The Government is saying that it is doing so many tests per day. It is using the old system where one pulls up at the roadside and gets tested. Why does it not do what we did in Bandon last week where people came down from Belfast to bring 30 people to Northern Ireland for operations? They had their results within an hour of having had their tests done in my own clinic. The Government system is outdated. It is wasting time and money. People are suffering with their mental health and the elderly and ordinary people are suffering.

A woman rang me today to say that her husband went out to work, her child went to secondary school, her other two children are told to stay at home from college and educate themselves at home, and she cannot go outside beyond a 5 km radius. She said that things are more in than out; more people cannot move. What is wrong with the country? Where are we going? We do not have any common sense and the real reason is that we have not stuck to the basics and tried to keep people on side, to educate them and work with them on these basics. One has to work with people. People are frustrated and business people have lost their businesses. This has gone one step too far.

The Government sat back and is now turning it over to the gardaí to carry out the rules and regulations that are there. It should stick to the basics and gets its testing done properly. It is like what Deputy Tóibín has described as a yo-yo system. People will be tested and will be off sitting at home for the next number of weeks, will be back out again and will be sent home again about a month later. It is a game and the whole thing is upside down. People can see through it and are becoming very frustrated. If we do not toe the line we will be criticised but I will certainly not be toeing this line.

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