Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This not the kind of legislation that any of us wants to be debating or supporting. My colleagues and I will support the proposal for a reduced timeframe, as provided for in the Sinn Féin amendment. There is no doubt that some measures are required to be available to the Garda to deal with non-compliance. However, as colleagues have pointed out, the pubs are closed at the moment, as are the hotels. If Twitter can be believed, the Taoiseach has told the Fianna Fáil Party tonight that there will be no early end to the lockdown and it will last the full six weeks. That will come as a huge disappointment to people because there is the hope that there would be an honest review of the current restrictions after four weeks if the numbers allow for some relaxation.

There is no doubt that we are seeing some very positive signs in terms of the R-nought number moving below one. That is happening not because of the punitive measures that are being taken but because the public has bought into getting the virus under control. It has not been achieved by a high degree of enforcement. When I speak to people who are critical of the restrictions, the point they often make is that some of the things that are being done are a bit counterproductive, such as the road checks and reductions in traffic lanes on major arteries at peak times when people are going to and coming from work. Nobody is being stopped and all that is happening is that traffic jams are being created. People are quite cross about that. They are saying that they only want to go to or get home from work and they really do not see the benefit of the road blocks and other measures. It is really important that the Government does not lose the public by imposing measures that are not seen to really address the issues. In the case of targeting non-compliance such as that of pubs which are flouting the law, I certainly can see the sense in doing that and the need to do it.

The Minister spoke about how the operation of the provisions of this Act dovetail with the provisions of the Health (Amendment) Act 2020 by way of statutory instrument and so on. I have noticed that people are breaking the restrictions only when they have really genuine reasons to move around. For example, several people have contacted me who have a family member with autism for whom a regime is required to be in place that might involve going a little further than 5 km. There are people with genuine caring needs who need to break the rules. No matter how one reassures them, if they do not have that piece of paper in their pocket, they are very reluctant to move out of their 5 km area.

The people who are the most compliant are likely to be those most fearful of the statutory instrument the Government has proposed and the regulations introduced a couple of weeks ago on foot of that legislation. They will probably be those most affected by virtue of the fact that they are so compliant. The Policing Authority's report on commercial businesses indicated that when inconsistencies in the approach of An Garda Síochána arose, it was primarily due to the detail of the regulations and how they were initially communicated by the latter. I am certainly not being critical of An Garda Síochána in making that point. I am aware that Garda sergeants and inspectors had pointed out that they were very concerned about what was being asked of them. They may not have been referring to the particular component with which we were dealing but a range of other measures, particularly those in place prior to the Health (Amendment) Bill 2020 and the associated regulations. Having read those regulations, I must say that they were so prescriptive that I could see how people who should not have been greatly impacted by them would have been.

The earlier date is a signal that this House is maintaining oversight of these draconian measures. It is important that these measures do not remain on the Statute Book a minute longer than is necessary. It is better to evaluate whether they are still needed in February rather than waiting until June to do so.

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