Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. As he mentioned, the Taoiseach met with the four Catholic archbishops to talk about what might be possible in the next couple of weeks. We are reluctant to change any of the regulations at the moment. I understand the point the Deputy is making about people being able to attend mass. In most countries it is allowed, for obvious reasons. It is allowed north of the Border but nearly every day there is one group or another making a good case as to why the rules should be relaxed, whether it is hunting, coursing, tennis, golf, gyms or children's clothes. We feel that if we start relaxing regulations on a piecemeal basis at the moment, that will undermine what we are trying to achieve and we do not want to do that, certainly at this stage. Level 5 is for six weeks. We made provision to allow people to visit graves. It is November, many people want to visit graves, and that is permitted, even if it is beyond 5 km.

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