Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Too many people have died from this virus and the Taoiseach is correct that it is very serious. It can and does kill. The lethal nature of the virus is nowhere near as serious as it once was. Taking average figures provided by the Central Statistics Office for April, 74 of 1,000 cases tragically led to deaths. In October, five of 1,000 cases tragically led to deaths. Of 1,000 cases in March, 192 led to hospitalisation. Of 1,000 cases in October, 50 led to hospitalisation. This virus is not as lethal as it once was, nor is it as lethal as we once feared. We all remember the horrific scenes from Bergamo and felt that pain at the time. Furthermore, thanks to the huge efforts of so many people, that has not and will not happen here. Despite this, the hammer of lockdown, designed to fight something far more deadly, if still being used now. The facts have changed and our strategy has not. That is not to criticise what we have done until this point. It is to say that now is an opportunity to recalibrate our approach as we look towards the next 12 months.

A question that is separate question from whether lockdowns are still necessary, which I believe they are not, is whether lockdowns potentially doing more harm than good. Cancer referral rates are dramatically down and reports of abuse in the home, be it of a child or a partner, are up. People are struggling with mental health. These are just the other health concerns that we have in society today. That is not to mention the societal or economic damage that is being done as a result of lockdowns. Covid is very serious but this is too narrow a lens to make these tremendous changes and interruptions to our citizens lives and how they go about living, week in and week out, and now month in month out, over the course of 2020.

There is an opportunity for the Government to make some changes. The first thing we should do is remove national lockdowns from the five-level strategy for the reasons I have given. I also favour the opening of structured environments because the Government has told us that these open structured environments are safer. I emphasise individual responsibility for people and businesses and we should penalise people accordingly. We should place rings of steel around vulnerable communities. We can do this. The health authorities, local authorities, charities in the homeless sector and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government did this earlier this year and do it still under the new Minister. It can be done for vulnerable communities. We should also keep the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, but merge it into the National Emergency Co-ordination Group. That group is our best practice in this country and we are not using it. It is more inclusive and will lead to better decisions. We should move away from case numbers as a metric for major policy decisions because the correlation, as I have just outlined, is no longer there. We should re-establish the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response. Its Chairman, Deputy McNamara, did great work and we need that layer of accountability back in place.

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