Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

They are not agreed. Thursday would have been the logical day, as I see it, to have the promised debate on the Covid-19 response and the public health crisis. It is deeply ironic that the Taoiseach should cite as justification for not having that debate the non-essential travel and work requirements. It is precisely the Government's failure to police non-essential travel and non-essential work that means the situation is dangerously plateauing. We need to discuss that in detail this week and interrogate the Government's policy.

It is also ironic that the Taoiseach has cited his greater participation in the business of the House when the other issue I have raised for the past few weeks is the fact that the two sessions of Questions to the Taoiseach that normally follow Leaders' Questions are gone. We asked for just one of those sessions to be reinstated, as a compromise, in order that the Taoiseach would be subject to questioning. That was absolutely rejected. The Government is trying to minimise its exposure to questioning at a critical time for the country.

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