Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Quite honestly, I do not think anybody knows what the Taoiseach is saying. What exactly is he talking about regarding travel? I have consistently said that the failure of this Government and the last Government to address the issue of travel has been the biggest single failing in the response to Covid-19. At no point have we had a coherent and effective system to address the threat posed by inward travel. As my colleague said, this virus does not come in on the wind; it comes in via people travelling on planes and boats. We have never had a serious attempt to tackle that aspect.

At this point, people are getting pretty fed up of all the sacrifices they are making. Life is very difficult for everybody at the moment. People expect that the Government will play its part in doing the things it should be doing. I refer to having proper testing and tracing in place and ensuring we have effective restrictions to drive down the virus to a very low level, which we did last summer. People also expect the Government to deal with the issue of the importation of the virus. The Government has not done any of those things adequately, and that is why we are in this situation now. We are in a third wave, without any prospect of getting out of it for the foreseeable future. The Taoiseach is not setting out any pathway ahead and no strategy is in place to deal with this situation.

What exactly is the Taoiseach talking about regarding restrictions on travel? The question of mandatory hotel quarantine is absolutely essential and we should be doing that for everybody. I cannot understand why the Taoiseach will not go with that policy, which has proved so successful in other countries where it has been operated. He just has not provided any explanation in that regard.

What does the Taoiseach understand the term "home quarantining" to mean? Two of his Ministers - the Minister for Health last night, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs today - have conveyed very confused understandings of what that term means. In the context of international travel, therefore, what does the Taoiseach mean by the term "home quarantining"? What are people being expected to do? Whatever about having home quarantining to reduce community cases, the point here is that we are talking about international travel and the threat of new and stronger variants of the virus which we do not know anything about. What does the Taoiseach mean by "mandatory home quarantining"? How does he see that working? What is the requirement for somebody sharing accommodation with family or housemates? How does the Taoiseach see that working, and how does he see it being policed?

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