David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is unacceptable that this legislation is being rushed through the Dáil and the Seanad in one day without proper scrutiny. The Minister will say, of course, that this is necessary because these measures have to be brought in as quickly as possible but we know that rushed legislation is never the answer. Elements of this Bill are obviously necessary but others concern me. Our job, in opposition, and the job of Government backbenchers, is to scrutinise legislation, make sure it is fit for purpose and ensure that we have enough time to discuss proposed amendments. The reality is that we will not have that time. If we get past one or two amendments to this Bill, that will be a lot and then that will be the end of it. An hour and a half has been allotted for discussion of the Bill. We should have six hours or more to discuss it and the proposed amendments. Good, sensible amendments have been tabled by a number of parties and Independents in opposition and we will not get the opportunity to properly debate or scrutinise them. I will hazard a guess, although the Minister might surprise me, that not one amendment will be accepted by the Government, as has been the case for all of the emergency legislative provisions that have been brought forward and rushed through the Dáil.

I agree that the vast majority of people have complied, and continue to comply, with public health guidelines. I commend everybody who has done so because we all accept this is a difficult and challenging time. None of us in this Chamber wants to be where we are. None of us wants or likes restrictions. We all want everything to get back to normal but we are dealing with a virus that is deadly, contagious and requires public health interventions.

The Minister has had support from the Opposition in this State that would make many governments across the EU jealous. We have given support to emergency legislation and restrictions that have been imposed and caused a great deal of distress for people, social and economic harm. We support public health measures and interventions because we must, at the core of what we do, protect lives. That has to be what we do and should be acknowledged more by the Government.

There are, of course, a minority of people who are not complying with the guidelines. In my view, a majority of that minority can be encouraged to comply with the regulations and guidelines. If such people were approached by a member of An Garda Síochána and asked to desist from what they were doing and to comply, they would do so. They should not be subject to these fines and that is why we have submitted an amendment that provides for members of An Garda Síochána to first ask somebody to desist from what they are doing, as opposed to instantly going for the fine.

A minority of the minority who are not complying with guidelines are reckless. That is unacceptable and those people have to be subject to enforcement because they are putting their own lives and health in danger but, more importantly, the lives and health of other people. That is unacceptable. There must, of course, be enforcement for those people. Their actions are causing anger and frustration for the majority of people who are complying in an effort to reduce the spread of the virus and protect their communities.

At the heart of our efforts to achieve high compliance must be ensuring a common sense of solidarity. We must abide by the rules and protect each other, particularly the most vulnerable. The recent approach and actions of this Government, whereby it has cut incomes and business supports for some of the most exposed sectors, has undermined the idea that we are all in this together. The Government and the Tánaiste have attempted to under the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, in recent times and that has damaged the emergency team's credibility and undermined public efforts to contain the virus. The approach must be, in the first instance, to encourage those who are not complying to understand the guidelines and comply for the greater public good. An Garda has taken that approach. If people continue to refuse to stick to the rules, there will be situations where enforcement is required, as I have said.

The fact that nothing in this Bill has anything at all to do with large companies such as those running meat plants will be surprising to many people and not surprising to some. I am open to a sensible discussion about enforcement for those who breach guidelines and the role of big businesses, corporations, meat plants and all of those who also have responsibilities. That has to be a sensible discussion where we have an opportunity to properly scrutinise this legislation, put forward amendments that will be properly debated and allow for the Minister to respond to them. He will not be able to respond to the vast majority of the amendments that have been tabled. We will not even hear the his view on the amendments or the Government's rationale as to why certain amendments are unnecessary.

In essence, the Bill provides for certain categories of fines, fixed penal provisions, dwelling event provisions and penal provisions. It sets only upper limits of fines between €500 and €2,500. The problem is what those fines will apply to and the precise nature of the fixed penalty provisions. The on-the-spot fines, if we want to call them that, will not be for Members of this House to decide. It will be for the Minister to set by way of regulation. He is asking us to give him a blank cheque to go and draft the regulations, decide what will be subject to a fixed charge notice or on-the-spot fine. That will be solely his prerogative and we will have no say whatsoever in that. We have some sense that it will apply to house parties and those who travel beyond 5 km from their homes, and I have a view on that, but we do not know precisely what it will mean. We have no opportunity to ensure there are proper checks and balances in respect of how people can appeal, how long they have to pay and what happens if they do not pay. All of that will be set out by way of regulation and the regulations will not come back to this House or the Seanad. All the Minister has to do is consult the Minister for Justice and Equality and bring them in. We are being asked to give the Government a blank cheque here and if the Minister was in opposition, there is no way he would give any party in government a blank cheque of that size. That is not the way to bring in legislation. The regulation that the Minister will bring in will resemble primary legislation more than it will regulations. That is a big mistake on the parts of the Minister and the Government. For that reason, I will not be able to support the Bill unless the Minister accepts the sensible amendments that have been tabled by my party and others.

It is fair to say that there has been a failure in some sectors, whether meat plants or other factory settings, to properly put in place infection control measures. That has, in its own way, led to the spread of the virus. That is why we have proposed an amendment to the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. Our amendment would make Covid-19 a notifiable, occupational illness that would require workplace occurrences of Covid-19 reportable and require their reporting to the Health and Safety Authority, HSA. This would ensure that the HSA can immediately inspect a workplace and ensure that workplace practices do not contribute to the spread of the virus. It is vital that is done and it is what workers are calling for.

We also need proper sick pay and I acknowledge that the Labour Party tabled a motion on this, which we supported. Those are the types of solutions and measures that we should put in place, as well as powers of enforcement. We are not seeing those types of solutions but we are seeing a Government bringing forward and rushing through emergency legislation containing measures that will impact on ordinary working people.

11 o’clock

I want to make an important point and I will do so as carefully as I can. There are parts of this city and country where people live in apartments and in areas where the accommodation is very cramped. There are apartment blocks of seven to nine storeys. It is exceptionally difficult for people in those circumstances to socially distance and for children to adhere to the guidelines. These are socially deprived and working class areas. I have no doubt that when people in those areas look at these types of fines, they wonder if they will apply to them. Is that where the Garda is going to enforce them, as opposed to in more affluent parts of this city and elsewhere? That is a legitimate concern because people living in those flats or apartment complexes - with 50 or 60 families per complex - are trying to keep their children indoors and socially distanced. Can the Minister imagine how difficult that is? They will be looking at this legislation and asking how it is going to apply. That is why we have to be proportionate and apply common sense to what we do.

I also share the concerns articulated by the Garda representative bodies and others that the overly punitive approach proposed by the Government risks alienating people. Over-enforcement can be as bad as under-enforcement. Excessive powers and measures can undermine the solidarity we need for high levels of compliance and we could end up making the situation worse. To avoid disproportionate fines, we have proposed amendments which would require new regulations issued under this legislation and amendments to regulations issued under the Act to be first approved by the Dáil and the Seanad. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever that, when the Minister crafts his regulations, he cannot bring them back to the Dáil for scrutiny and approval. I said this to him yesterday. We are giving him these powers to make regulations but we do not even get a heads-up or an email from his Department to say he has signed the regulations and will post them on the website. We have to check every hour to see when the regulations will be up. That is absolutely unacceptable. We are saying this time and again. Yesterday he committed to more improvement.

The regulations were put up on the website yesterday morning after we had raised concerns the day before and after we had a briefing. Many of us were at that briefing with officials from the Department who were not able to answer questions. That was not because they were not equipped to do so, but because we were asking about matters that were not in the legislation but would be in the regulations, including the precise application of the fines, to what and whom they will apply, under what circumstances and the precise penalties involved. The Minister says that the fixed notices can be up to €500, although we know they will probably be less than that. We can all speculate. For example, will the charge for a house party be €50, €100 or €200? What can I say to people? It is a maximum of €500 but I have no idea because the Minister will set that by way of regulation. I am expected to support the Bill blindly and not know what that charge will be, not be able to tell people what it will mean or what the safeguards, checks and balances will be, because these will again be done by way of regulations that will not come back to this House. How is that fair? How is that the way to deal with this matter? How is that the way to get support from the Opposition? I just do not see how it is.

Regular briefings were due to begin this week. I raised this with the Minister yesterday. The first briefing with the HSE yesterday was arranged at the same time that we were in this Chamber with the Minister. As a result, none of the Opposition spokespeople on health could be at the briefing. I contacted the Department and the HSE and they said they were going ahead anyway. They did not even reschedule the briefing; they just went ahead. This is the type of nonsense with which we are dealing all the time. We want to be constructive and to work with the Government. We want information, to be able to feed into decisions and to give people answers to questions. We cannot do that if we are being kept in the dark.

References to custodial sentences in this Bill are unacceptable. I do not think custodial sentences are the way forward and those provisions will also be of concern to people. We want these provisions to be removed and have tabled amendments to that effect. The practicalities of this Bill are also questionable and we must ensure that whatever measures are put in place are actually enforceable and do not cause non-compliance. High fines and sentences of imprisonment for breaches of the guidelines are not proportionate. It is particularly inappropriate where the Minister is making regulations that would lead to such things without proper Dáil or Seanad scrutiny of any future regulations. That is going to be a very important part of how people see this.

A number of Deputies have made the point that people want to hear from the Government what the plan is. What is the plan on how we deal with this virus? Where is the exit strategy? How do we get out of this? We will have restrictions for six weeks and these may or may not work and may or may not bring down the numbers. What happens then? This has been categorised as a yo-yo approach. We ease the restrictions for Christmas, then in January and February we will be back in the same cycle again. I acknowledge that we will be discussing some of this during the statements later but people do not have any confidence that there is a plan.

The Government published the roadmap for living with the virus and, let us be honest, it is dead in the water. It never took off the ground because we had level 3+, level 4+ and level 5-. It never took off. It was never a living document that was properly actioned. The county-by-county approach is completely gone and has been for some time. What is the plan now? I can tell the Minister what I think should be in the plan. First, we have to make sure we get testing and tracing right. We have to do what we should have done during the summer and look at the core components of ensuring people are given hope and that there is a vision from the Government which can allow us not just to wrestle back control of the virus but stay ahead of it for as long as we possibly can. I accept that that means people doing what they need to do and that there must be individual responsibility. Of course it does. However, it also means that the Government must play its part.

As regards testing and tracing, we still have not been given any sense of how many staff there are or how many additional staff have been employed in tracing over the past number of weeks. We all know that when the cases get to a certain level they are going to overwhelm the system. We all accept that but, equally, we accept that there is not enough capacity in the system and there has not been from the get-go. The Minister has to accept that as well. People who are working in the system are contacting us, some of them in tears, telling us that they simply cannot keep up and that the system is creaking under the pressure. Test and trace is important.

I do not know how many times we, and Deputies from all parties, have come into this Chamber and asked the Minister what is happening at the airports. There is no testing at the airports, even today. The European traffic light system provides us with some opportunity and a framework to try to get this right. Today, despite all the promises from the Government, we have no idea whatsoever what is happening at the airports. We have very limited protections and the electronic passenger locator form is still not the answer. There is no testing and tracing, quarantine or isolation, despite the fact that the WHO has told us time and again that the way to keep control of the virus is to test, trace and isolate. We are not doing that at the airports.

I said yesterday that we need an all-island response. The memorandum of understanding that was signed by the Minister and the Minister for Health in the North was a good initiative and a step forward but it is not working. That means the Executive. The Minister is right that my party is in that Executive. We are up for all-island solutions and we are trying to move others onto that ground as best we can within that Executive. This is ultimately about the two Ministers for Health, the two Chief Medical Officers, CMOs, the Executive and the Government joining up their responses as best they can in respect of test and trace, sharing data and resources and aligning restrictions and public health responses. I can tell the Minister, hand on heart, that my party is up for all of that and more. If we do not act as a single unit for the purposes of controlling and preventing the spread of this disease across the island, we are not going to do it. Those are the types of interventions that need to be made by the Government, as well as all the income supports and protections.

The Government does not want to hear this, but it wasted the summer by not doing all that I have outlined. The WHO has said that lockdowns are used for a number of different purposes, one of which is to try to contain the spread of the virus. Let us hope that works and that the numbers come down.

The other intent of a lockdown is to give us breathing space to build our defences. I want to hear from Government what exactly that means in practical terms. What actions and interventions will be taken? Where will the additional capacity come from in all of these areas? If we come out of this lockdown and testing and tracing is still not fixed, we still do not have testing in our airports, or we still do not have capacity in our hospitals, intensive care units or acute beds, that is squarely on the shoulders of the Minister and the Government. We are asking people to make significant sacrifices. I believe the vast majority will. Those who do not and those who are reckless should be subject to enforcement, but the Government has to step up to the plate and play its part. In my experience, the vast majority of people do not believe the Government or Minister. We need to see a new plan that gives people hope, a sense that we are in control and a sense that we can come out of this. That is what people want and expect from the Government, and they are simply not getting it.

See this speech in context