Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I just thought that would make sense because that amendment was in the group. I will take my slot now that I have it and I will try to be brief.

During my nine terms in this House, my approach has always been that everybody is here on their own mandate and entitled to their own views. The notion that Deputies come in here to tell other people how they should think and what is right or wrong according to their likes is not right.

This is a fundamental set of amendments. Other speakers are absolutely right. This is a very unusual Bill, almost unique. When the Minister for Health gave his concluding speech on Second Stage he spoke about previous crises. We never introduced legislation that amounted to a series of penalties with crimes to be determined later. That is just a very odd way of doing it. In my Second Stage contribution, I said that the Labour Party is willing to give qualified support to this approach because we are facing an unprecedented crisis. People are dying and are very sick. Last night, I spoke to a family, six of whom have tested positive for this awful disease and one of whom is very ill. When we talk to people who are enduring this, we know how awful it is. I want us to take whatever measures we can to mitigate that harm and not allow it to spread across our community.

I am really amazed that the Minister has not just accepted this because I think it gives him comfort and strength. The two sets of regulations he drafted previously are very complicated. Other speakers have done some analysis of them. The regulations could certainly be vastly improved. I notice in the regulations he published two days ago, although this legislation has been vaunted as being a response to house parties, that the Minister has yet to criminalise house parties. Unless he does so in the next set of regulations, the penalties in this legislation will not apply to house parties.

We need to have an opportunity to examine in detail the specific secondary legislation the Minister is introducing. I say this not only because it is the right thing to do, but because I am absolutely certain that the collective wisdom of all sides of this House would improve them, make them more effective and would allow for much more public buy-in. All of this is predicated on public support. We hope that nobody will be fined or prosecuted. That is our collective wish, but that is built upon the hope that people will accept these rules. They are much more likely to accept them if we have proper debate and scrutiny and people are not claiming that this legislation has been rushed through and not properly thought through.

That is a very reasonable argument to make if the Government does not come back and allow the House to have a very clear view of the particular secondary legislation that will flow from this enactment.

A few things in the Bill cause me concern. I am looking at friction points that will cause annoyance and undermine confidence in our ability to tackle this terrible virus. Take the notion of people who are "loitering with intent to attend a gathering". We know from legislation across the globe that giving that sort of power to a police force to move people on because they are loitering with intent is fraught with difficulty. All that is needed is one member of An Garda Síochána acting out in a way that they should not to really fundamentally cause concerns. We can make this much better if we are given the opportunity. Every Member of this House would be very willing to sit whatever hours the Minister wants on whatever days he wants, to ensure that we do this right and proper.

I conclude on the fundamental issue of test and trace. It has been the mantra of the World Health Organization from the very beginning of the pandemic. It is a reasonable criticism that we wasted some of the opportunity we had to build a comprehensive test and trace system. I know the Minister pushed back on all that but what happened over that weekend proved that we do not have a proper trace system. The Minister says we have a proper comprehensive system because we have 117,000 tests. I dealt with a case this week where a very ill gentleman was tested in a hospital last Saturday, and tested positive. Since last Saturday, he has received two text messages with the same reference number calling him for two further tests in two different test centres. Mistakes will be made, I understand that, but getting test and trace right is so important that we must deploy whatever resources we have to do that. In the interim, we must take whatever measures are needed to discourage any activities that will allow the virus to spread but we must do it by holding on to the collective support of the majority of the people - we will not have everybody - but the handling of this legislation is fundamental to doing that. I appeal to the Minister to accept this series of four amendments because that will allow the House to improve things fundamentally and to build the kind of support we need.

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