Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Covid is a real illness and we must do our best to try to reduce its incidence in the State. I do not envy the task the Minister and Cabinet have at times in trying to work out where the balance and proportion lie with regard to restrictions. I am of the view that the country has been overly aggressive when it comes to restrictions. We have the second lowest level of Covid in the European Union. That is partially because we have had the sixth strictest regime on the planet in recent months. That would be fine if there was not a massive cost to those restrictions. They have an incredible cost when it comes to physical health, mental health, society and people's ability to socialise and do business. So many businesses have been completely wiped out, many of which will not return to existence. The Companies Registration Office indicated to me that some 3,500 businesses have already gone completely bust, despite the fact that it will not know the total number of businesses that have gone bust until the end of the tax year next year when that becomes abundantly clear. We know that tens of thousands of businesses are likely to have been totalled in recent months, despite the supports the Government has provided. They have been totalled in many ways because Ireland has been an outlier regarding the severity of the restrictions it has imposed.

At the start of this process, the Government was invested in the idea of regional lockdowns, so we had a situation where the focus was on Laois and Kildare. That decision was lauded for having achieved what was desired at the time in reducing the incidence in those counties. Ireland generally has a low incidence of Covid but certain counties have a very low incidence rate. Several have a rate below 50 cases per 100,000 in the past 14 days. Counties Wexford, Westmeath, Galway and Kerry have a very low incidence. Logic would dictate that to be proportionate and balanced the Government should seek to be less forceful in restrictions in those four counties, especially when it comes to wet pubs. The idea that the presence of a chef in a pub could magically delete any incidence of Covid in the pub is nonsense. We also know that pubs typically tend to be a little more of a controlled environment than homes, where the biggest number of cases arise. In the run-up to Christmas, is it possible for the Government to refocus on having a degree of regional difference in how it applies the restrictions?

I add my voice to the calls for the CRSS to be more flexible. No matter what way one cuts this up, there will always be people on the wrong side of any regulations. The necessity for flexibility in the regulations is to make sure people who have missed out on the support for whatever reason are no longer left out. I call on the Minister to ensure that flexibility is in place.

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