Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I wish the Leas-Cheann Comhairle and all the staff who operate the building a happy new year. They have been stalwart last year and this year, and I wish them well. A month ago, Ireland had one of the lowest rates of Covid-19 in Europe. That has utterly changed. Ireland now has one of the highest infection rates in the world. As the Chief Medical Officer has said, the pandemic is out of control. I argue that this stems from decisions made in early December to open the economy and lift restrictions. That has come back to haunt the Government.

It has put our health service, members of the public and our healthcare workers at enormous risk in their workplaces. Mandatory quarantine has never even been proposed by this Government. Those coming into the country were not even tested until two weeks ago, and nobody was quarantined. There are, therefore, huge question marks over the living with Covid strategy. The yo-yo effect of constant lockdowns will demoralise and break people financially, physically and mentally. The zero-Covid strategy, which isolates this terrible virus, is a better approach than the living with Covid strategy. We have paid the price for the constant lockdowns and the living with Covid strategy. We have the vaccine, and that has given a huge amount of hope to everybody facing this pandemic. However, I return to the issues of policy and the decisions that this Government has made over the past nine months. Of course this pandemic is difficult. No government in the world could have been prepared for the ravages of it but the policy and strategy, particularly putting the interests of business before those of public health, has come back to haunt this Government. This Government will have to face up to that legacy and soul searching must be done. The living with Covid strategy and the constant yo-yoing do not work.

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