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

My first point is that we should stand back from creating unnecessary rows and tensions between public health advice, Government decisions and the views of the Oireachtas. I accept that people have different perspectives on Covid-19 and the steps we must take to keep the virus down, open up society and relax restrictions.

We should never question the good faith of people on all sides, particularly in the public health realm and NPHET, whose fundamental objective is to protect lives and public health. We should not lose sight of that in the debate.

Second, the Deputy is correct in saying data are very important. We have done extra work in the past while in assessing data and doing work on them — it is essentially data analytics — within my Department and in conjunction with NPHET and others. The data will inform the next steps. That is an important point to make; it is not guesswork. Some of the steps may not be palatable while some will be. I said at the outset, when going into level 5, that we wanted to come out in or around level 3.

I can see that we are all fatigued by Covid but the bottom line is that Ireland is second best in Europe in dealing with the second wave. One would hardly realise that with the tension about the place, the attacks, criticism and giving out. I repeat that our performance is the second best in the European Union in terms of keeping the virus down. Will someone acknowledge that? I believe it needs to be acknowledged. Our figures are low because of a series of restrictions and the hard work of the Irish people. The Irish people have adhered to these restrictions, to be fair to them.

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