Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Bill essentially asks the Dáil to give the Government licence to introduce a broad variety of fines for individuals. It asks for powers that could only and should only be granted to a Government that has substantial levels of trust and confidence among the population. I regret to say that this Government does not have that trust or confidence. It absolutely should have. Arguably it had it, but it squandered it. The Government has abused much of the goodwill the Irish people invested in the collective efforts to get on top of Covid-19.

I could list any number of failures and debacles, but I will just concentrate on this week. On Tuesday, we learned that the testing-and-tracing operation had collapsed to such an extent that the people who had tested positive for Covid-19 were asked to do their own contact tracing. On Wednesday, we learned that far from learning previous lessons and protecting our nursing homes, almost the entire staff in one nursing home had been hit by Covid and that grave concerns were being raised about several others. People rightly asked: how the hell have we got back to this point?

Very late last night it emerged that the Virapro sanitiser widely used in schools but also in many other public settings, had been recalled by the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, causing further chaos in many schools that are already struggling to keep their doors open. This morning as parents and teachers listened into "Morning Ireland", they heard Fran McNulty tell them that the recall actually happened on Tuesday. In the absence of a debate on the issue that Sinn Féin sought for today, I want to put questions on the record and invite the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine to come into the Chamber today and provide answers. Did his Department provide approval for this product in the first place? If so how? When did he and his Department first become aware of the concerns regarding this product? When was it decided to consider recalling? Why, when the decision to recall was formalised on Tuesday, was this decision not publicised until very late on Thursday night? At what point were the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health informed that yet another debacle was coming down the tracks?

In the absence of answers to these outstanding questions and with all these debacles, how could the Dáil be seriously asked to hand over the wide-ranging and unspecified powers the Government is requesting today? We absolutely need enforcement of the regulations. Above all, we need the goodwill, trust and confidence of the people. That needs to be earned. The Government needs to earn it. It is time for a sea change. It is time to engage with communities that have done their level best from the outbreak of the pandemic.

See this speech in context