Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I move Amendment No.1:

In page 4, line 36, after “Equality” to insert “and Dáil Éireann”.

I did not respond to Deputy Stephen Donnelly's last point because I did not want to delay this section, but his argument is also relevant to this amendment. We are talking about weighing the Minister's political judgment against the collective wisdom of the Dáil and its Members on penal measures and fines the Minister might propose based on his analysis of what is causing further transmission of the virus. I would like to respond to the Minister's last comment about the supposedly indisputable fact of widespread transmission in households. It is not really indisputable fact, but rather a particular interpretation of the facts. As I said to the Minister, it does not explain how we got so close to eliminating community transmission. We had driven the virus out of private homes, but then it got back in. Of course it will end up in homes and circulate among families if it is picked up somewhere else. That stands to reason. That does not mean activities or irresponsible behaviour within the home are the reasons for the rising infection rate. Those two things are not the same and the Government is implying that they are.

When we had come so close to eliminating community transmission the disease was continuing to fester in direct provision centres, meat processing plants, certain workplace environments and certain large-scale congregations. We know those settings are where it spreads. It infects individuals who then go home, and then it spreads to their families. Critically, the Minister has not resourced testing and he has particularly failed to resource our tracing regime. As a result we cannot monitor that in detail. The under-resourced tracing system chases the virus but it does not actually find where the virus came from in the first place. We know the virus has a two-week lag. Despite this, the system goes back a couple of days rather than going back two weeks to thoroughly investigate each case and all the contacts involved to determine where an outbreak started. It is pretty obvious that if the Government did do that, the system would be able to identify particular congregated settings, workplaces and so on.

This is why we need Dáil oversight. We fundamentally reject the focus of this Bill, which is why we will reject the Bill itself. We fundamentally reject the underlying logic which focuses on individuals, households etc. as the cause for the current situation, rather than systemic, policy and strategy failures. Having said that, we will need oversight if the Minister is to have these draconian powers. To be honest, the Minister should support this series of amendments out of a sense of discomfort. If, as he has said, he really is uncomfortable with the use of draconian legislation, he will surely recognise the need for Ministers to be overseen by the entirety of the Oireachtas. Surely that is a good thing. The reason he feels uncomfortable is that these are unprecedented and draconian powers. Rather than wanting to make those decisions himself, the Minister should be glad to benefit from the collective wisdom of the Dáil in deciding whether to impose penalties on people.

I know other Deputies wish to contribute, so I will not go on at length. I reiterate the point that the provisions under which penalties and fines will be imposed are aimed at people who are not adhering to public health advice. Who is the biggest culprit in terms of not adhering to public health advice? I ask the Minister to think about that. It is the Government. Slightly more than two weeks ago, it received public health advice that there would be exponential growth in infections unless the State moved to a higher level of restrictions but it ignored that advice. As a result, there was an exponential rise in infections and hospitalisations and the number of people who lost their lives multiplied. The Government ignored the public health advice, with the consequence that we are in a much worse position on a national scale and have thousands of extra cases. Neither the Minister nor the Government has been fined and there is no suggestion that they should suffer penalty or sanction. However, the Government thinks it is okay to impose sanctions on people who have no choice about these things and the overwhelming majority of whom have demonstrated a willingness to voluntarily comply with public health advice. Through the Bill, the Minister is effectively pointing the finger at those people. That is the logic that I and my colleagues reject. At the very least, surely the Minister should accept there should be Oireachtas oversight of the use and potential abuse of these draconian powers.

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