Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete the words ‘9th day of June, 2021’ and to substitute the words ‘9th day of February, 2021’ therefor.

I will be sharing time with Deputy Cullinane.

Our amendment relates to the length of time for which the Minister seeks to extend these powers. We understand we are in the most unusual and unfortunate circumstances where extreme powers like these are required. At times that happens, but when extreme powers such as these are in place, they need to be revisited as often as possible to ensure they are fully assessed, and we have full buy-in from the public. That is one of the big issues in all of this.

The Minister outlined what happens when gardaí enter licensed premises that are selling alcohol. If there are breaches of the guidelines in respect of that, the Garda can make a legitimate case for that to end and if that is not adhered to, it then has powers to close the premises for 24 hours or whatever, which is fair enough. Under difficult circumstances we accept that needs to happen. However, extending them to June of next year makes people ask why it is going that far ahead. Much of this is about buy-in from the public and trying to get people on board and bring them with us. We have been trying to do that through all of this. All parties and groupings in this House have tried to work with the Government to ensure we can keep coronavirus at bay, keep our people safe, keep our businesses open as much as possible and continue with as much of normal life as possible in the safest circumstances possible. That is what we all want to try to do.

A very profound principle in law is that if a law is introduced that does not have the confidence of the public and the public feel it is difficult to enforce, it removes people's respect not just for that particular law but for all other laws as well. We always need to guard against that danger. When we introduce extreme measures like this, we need to ensure we do not undermine people's confidence in what we are trying to do. We get the maximum buy-in we possibly we can from everyone in society to ensure compliance. I hate using the word "compliance" because it gives a hierarchal nature to it. This is about everyone working together for the best possible end goal, to protect all people who are out there doing their best, as the vast majority of people are.

To build that confidence, we need to look forward to the day when level 5 restrictions end and we go back down the scale, hopefully to level 3 or below. To build confidence and to ensure people understand that is what we want to do, we need to see from Government a clear plan for getting there. When we leave level 5, how will we ensure we have a strategy in place to avoid going back to that level again? We need to get our heads around that and work on it.

We tabled this amendment because a timescale going out to June is too far ahead to be able to get people to buy into the strategy without having a sense of where we are going with the plan to ensure we never return to level 5 again. I hope the Minister recognises that is what we are trying to do and accepts our amendment to revisit the provisions in February, which is in three months. We can then look a further three months forward if need be. Hopefully we would not need to do that then. The more often we can revisit these matters, re-examine them and learn from the experience we have when they are in force, the better.

As I said, we need to have a strategy. The World Health Organization and the vast majority of medical experts in this country and elsewhere tell us that the key to keeping this virus or any virus at bay is by having a very effective testing system that is fast and efficient, and also a highly efficient tracing system. That is one of the issues on which we need to try to get people's confidence back. I have a great fear that many people in our communities are losing confidence in this process. We need to restore that confidence.

This is a small country, and everyone knows someone who has the virus or somebody who is a neighbour of somebody who has the virus. They are all sharing the experience of what happened. They contacted their GP and it took four days before they got notification of the test. It was two days later before they went for the test and it was another three days before the result of the test. People hear all these stories which give the impression that the system is broken and not working. They feel under pressure and that they are being forced or somehow coerced into adhering to all these rules and regulations, while on the other side of it not enough effort is being done by the health services to ensure adequate testing facilities are available and the testing is fast enough.

Contact tracing is the big one that we all hear people telling us about. The incident that happened about ten days ago where people who tested positive were told to contact their own close contacts was a retrograde step as we try to build and secure that confidence.

Much work remains to be done. The issue at hand is the need to have a law that will build the confidence of the people. The Government must do more to do that. Unfortunately, that has not happened. While the broad thrust of this Bill may be appropriate at this time, it is certainly not appropriate to extend it for length of time proposed. It would certainly not be appropriate to keep this measure in place for almost nine months into the future when people do not have confidence in the contact tracing and testing. That would be a bad thing to do and would undermine the confidence of the public in what we are all trying to work together to achieve.

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