Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Why the delay on details regarding the opening of hotels, public houses, restaurants and other businesses? If the intention is to open businesses for Christmas, why all the secrecy? If people are having a turkey for Christmas dinner, they will already be making plans for this. People make plans one month or five weeks in advance because they have to order the turkey or whatever food they will have for Christmas. Why? It is because of supply and demand.

Are there any considerations for the looming issue regarding the supply chain of food for hotels, pubs and restaurants for Christmas? Hotels, pubs and restaurants have not ordered food or drink from their suppliers for months. They still do not know whether they are opening. They cannot simply turn a switch and say they are opening tomorrow and expect all the suppliers to have stock for them. In preparation for the proposed opening up of the economy, hotels have contacted their suppliers. Suppliers have told the hotels they are unsure about the reopening and cannot judge the stock. They cannot guarantee supply. The knock-on effect is that there is no guarantee of supply.

Children all over the world send their letters to Santa Claus in advance. Why? It gives Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus and the elves due time so they can have the presents for the children on Christmas Day. Even the children around the world know this. Christmas is the busiest time of the year. People start planning to come home for Christmas up to 12 months in advance. We know that Christmas is different. What the Government has done to date has not worked. People will meet officially or unofficially. If the hotels, pubs and restaurants are open, we will have traceability and accountability.

The Government should work with what it has. There are 14,000 gardaí in Ireland, plus trainees. If the Government worked out the timetable, it would find out that at any one time we have a maximum of 6,000 gardaí on duty. That is approximately a ratio of people per garda of 900:1. If we work out the figures for hotels, pubs and restaurants, we quadruple traceability and accountability. We can work out the people who will not go to hotels and those who will not go to restaurants. It works out at between one and ten per person. We can then work out that we have 6,000 gardaí to go to where the problem lies at the moment, that is, where people are meeting for house parties. As the Taoiseach just mentioned, this is where the spike happens. The Government does not have the right number of people to quarantine what is in this country. The Taoiseach should use his head, common sense and a business approach and use what we have.

See this speech in context