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

Yes, Deputy Kelly, I understand. There will be a return volley at some stage.

We will examine that issue and the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media has raised these anomalies, which occur from time to time. The essential point, however, between here and Christmas is that we want to minimise the level of activities generally because we want to keep the virus down in order that people can have a safe and meaningful Christmas. We asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media to engage with all of the organisations for the new year to see how we would manage this but much will depend on where the numbers are with the virus.

Last evening, the number was 242. We must remember that we are starting at a much higher level of incidence within the community now than we were dealing with during the summer time, when we were looking at five to ten cases a day. Yesterday evening, it was 242 and the day before that it was 300. Between now and Christmas is approximately two weeks and we will see what we can do on that.

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