Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Aggressive suppression was never the plan of the Government. We saw it welcome flights full of rugby fans from Italy's inferno and global guests for St. Patrick's Day and how there was not even a leaflet at the airport for people returning from Cheltenham.

Last summer, fresh from telling billionaire tax exiles they were grand here and would not be outstaying their welcome, the Government sent inspectors to the airport not to check who was arriving but to check whether there was anyone on small State payments leaving. From the outset, wealth has been the motivation, not health. From closing down too early, opening up too quickly and doing too little too late in respect of testing and tracing to mandatory quarantine 18 months on, we are still thinking about it. Putting private wealth over public health is a symptom of the social disease sweeping old politics with its myopia and selfishness.

In 2019, the World Health Organization reported that 1.4 million people died of tuberculosis. Luckily for us in the developed world, they had the decency to keep it in their countries and die out of sight. Then came Covid, which hit us head-on. I said to the Minister at Christmas that the only reason the developed world cares about Covid is because it is a threat to our economies. Some of our front-line workers have yet to receive a first vaccine, yet family members or the celebrity in the room got the spare doses. In poorer countries, front-line workers are battling the virus and its variants and it is a case of nothing now and nothing ahead. We are all in this together, the Minister says, but he has not actually grasped that we really are. We are letting in the variants while the UK is reporting variants of concern on top of other variants of concern.

Sinn Féin has advocated for aggressive suppression from the start. I am proud we supported the No Profit on Pandemic EU citizens' initiative. I call on the Government to use Ireland's seat on the UN Security Council to make the world secure and to stand up for our shared humanity by championing early access to free vaccinations for our brothers and sisters in poorer parts of the world.

Yesterday, the Tories announced hotel quarantine for people travelling from 33 countries but we are still talking about only two. Imagine being shown up by the Tories. The embarrassment. We need an all-island strategy. We need mandatory hotel quarantine and sharing of data on passengers from the North. The Tánaiste stated yesterday that there are plans to launch a refreshed Living with Covid plan. The families of the 3,752 dead and dying would call that phrase deluded, insensitive and tone deaf. Facing into a crisis - we are a year into it now - all actions seemed too drastic. Afterwards, as we count the dead, they will all be seen to have been too inadequate. Chase this virus and dig the firebreaks in front of it; aggressive suppression is a no-brainer.

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