Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We may well end up in the same place. There are lots of things that we have done in the past year to fight this pandemic that I never thought we would do. The Government and I will always keep an open mind on these things. We may not be as far apart as people may think. When we have a discussion like this, in slogans, it misses the detail. This is the complexity of what we have to deal with and there are a number of things that we will have to do to defeat the pandemic. There is no silver bullet or single action that will make it all right this summer. Unfortunately, that is not a promise that anyone can make or keep.

Our strategy is to suppress the virus, to get as low as we can go over the next couple of weeks, to roll out and speed up vaccination because that will change the picture- again, it is not a panacea, but it will change the picture considerably - and for us only to open up where it is safe and sustainable to do so. We do not want to go to level 4 on 5 March only to have to go back again three or four weeks later. That is the very strong demand from the public now. They want to know that if we are going to ease restrictions on 5 March or whenever, that it will be sustained.

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