Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Government has been at pains to reject the idea that its Covid-19 strategy has been informed by the interests of short-term private profit. It is now 100% patently clear that is what is informing, or at least partially informing, the approach of the Government.

Yesterday the Taoiseach told the Dáil that "we took a more conservative approach on the household visits, and then traded that off with visits to hotels and restaurants". In other words, the Government rejected the NPHET advice to prioritise what is essential for people at Christmas, which is visits by people to their families, broadly defined. They had recommended that starting from this week one could have household visits and that for the two weeks around Christmas one could have visitors from three other households. The Government rejected that. Why? So that it could open up restaurants and gastro pubs. It is plain as day that this is what the Government decided to do. In doing so, it put profit first. It put profit before people visiting their families at Christmas, which is essential. It also placed the whole country in danger, in my opinion, with excess cases, deaths and a third wave in January, for which the Government is preparing the population as if it was absolutely inevitable, and a third lockdown that will be incredibly demoralising for people to go into. That is a consequence of the choices the Government has made to bend to the pressure of private sector business lobbying.

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