Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. The Government took the decision to move to level 3, which had significant implications for hospitality in general and for pubs, then decided to restrict household visits, moved to level 4 in some counties, and then to level 5 across the entire country. What was the motivation behind all of that? The motivation was simply to reduce community transmission of the virus. Why? We wanted to reduce the number of people who will die from the virus, to reduce the number of people who will have illness and prolonged illness because of the virus, and to reduce the spread of the virus. That is the only motivation for these restrictions. There is no other motivation. Believe me, the Government would like nothing better than to reopen society tomorrow morning or next week if that was possible.

Level 5 has worked. Level 3 had an impact and level 5 has had an impact to such an extent that we are the third best performing country in Europe in reducing the number of cases and the 14-day incidence. In recent days that has gone back up again. Some of the numbers have gone up but we are still third best in Europe. We should acknowledge that.

It is important to acknowledge that due to the hard work and sacrifices of people across the country, we have made significant progress. That is very significant for our hospitals. It is also very significant in terms of keeping our schools open, which has been a significant achievement since September on behalf of all those involved in our school communities. We have kept construction open. We have kept quite a lot of non-Covid health services open as well. That has all been enabled by the restrictions we brought in. It has been enabled by the sacrifices of the people. They have sacrificed a lot, including, for example, not being able to go the funeral of a loved one. That is very tough on people. Restricting people from visiting another household is a very tough sacrifice for them to make. Not being able to go out and socialise is a sacrifice that people are making. Not being able to go beyond 5 km is a very big restriction on personal liberty and freedom.

Juxtaposed against that are the scenes of last weekend and the previous weekend, where large crowds have gathered outside takeaway facilities. It is problematic in terms of the overall messaging and maintaining and underpinning confidence in the sacrifices people have made. We need to acknowledge that. It is why enforcement of existing laws is important, and we will have further engagement with the Garda in that regard. The key point is that this issue needs to be highlighted and it needs to be responded to.

In terms of engagement with different sectors, we will engage with publicans. However, I have to say that Covid thrives where crowds gather. This has implications, and has had implications, for the hospitality sector. When we went into level 5, we said we would try to exit on 1 December into level 3. I will talk to Deputies on this issue later and we will engage with sectors in advance of any decision the Government takes.

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