Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The living with Covid plan that Government published last autumn is, quite frankly, redundant. In fact, it was dead on arrival. There is no shame in standing down that plan. In fact, in our view, it would be to the Government's credit. Given the trauma, tragedy and anxiety that the people of this country have gone through, in particular, in the past six weeks, citizens would prefer it were the Government to front up with them. Citizens know that a tweak here and a tweak there to a plan which has not survived contact with reality will not save lives, protect health or allow us to avoid a series of interminable lockdowns. This virulent virus cannot be reasoned with. That has been tried. It has failed. Most of all, it has cost lives.

We owe it to the people to tackle this deadly threat head on, change tack, take it by the scruff of the neck and mean it when we do. By adopting the kind of aggressive suppression strategy that the Labour Party proposes, the sacrifices that we make over the next while will be worth it in the long run. It will save lives, protect our health service and health workers, allow for a resumption of meaningful economic activity and minimise the risk of yo-yoing in and out of damaging shutdowns.

Nowhere has the Government's softly-softly and incoherent approach to dealing with this unprecedented threat to human life been more evident than in how it has managed non-essential travel into this jurisdiction from the North. Time and again since last April, I warned the Minister's predecessor and officials in his Department of the effect that unimpeded travel from the North to Border counties and beyond was having on the spread of the virus and the threat to life. I told the Department what action needed to be taken. The Government failed to heed those calls. It is a poor reflection on this Administration that it only elects to sign regulations now nigh on ten months later placing the same kinds of restriction on travel for visitors from the North that have been imposed on residents of the South since last March.

While we would have preferred it had an all-island strategy been agreed, I do not accept for one minute that everything that could have been done to nail down a North-South strategy has been done. Not for the first time in our history has the retreat to tribal politics been responsible for an ever-rising body count on this island. Covid-19 is set to claim even more lives than the Troubles claimed over a 40-year period. The incapability to put narrow interests aside and adopt a common strategy to save lives should be a source of great shame. Sadly, it is a case of business as usual for some actors on this island.

Especially in a time of crisis such as this, leadership and good government involve deploying all of the levers at our disposal to protect the interests of the people we represent. It pains me to say it but when decisive action has been required to suppress aggressively this unprecedented threat to lives and livelihoods, this Government has too often failed or been plain incapable of getting even the basics right. If we are to accept the realpolitikthat an all-island Covid-19 strategy is unattainable and if that route is exhausted, our attention must naturally turn to the prospect of an east-west, two-island strategy. On 22 January, the Taoiseach stated that such discussions with Prime Minister Johnson were at an "exploratory" and "embryonic" stage. I detected then that it was a half-hearted and anaemic commitment to pursuing such a strategy, but that strategy needs to be doggedly pursued. A degree of alignment with the UK on key issues such as travel, quarantine and the management of emerging variants should be paramount on the agenda at the highest level.

The pandemic represents two crises in one - we have a public health crisis and an economic crisis. We are all seared by the experience of the financial crash and its impact on the economy and people's lives. It is evident every day how the European Central Bank, ECB, and the International Monetary Fund, IMF, have learned from that experience. There are opportunities now. The medicine prescribed is different, for example, and the propitious fiscal conditions and the likelihood that low interest rates will remain a feature of the environment for some considerable time mean that, if the right approach and tools are used, a deep recession can be avoided. Ideologically, I am concerned that there are those at senior level in government and among other decision makers in the system who will want to fight this war with the outdated strategies and weapons that were used to deal with the previous crisis. The message from the IMF is clear - spend what we can and then spend some more.

The pandemic has wrought havoc on our younger citizens. A staggering 56% of under-24s are unemployed. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, has warned of the scarring effect. Whole economic sectors have been ravaged. Consumer habits have changed overnight. Many jobs will not come back. A major injection of investment and support is required in upskilling, training and further and higher education. We need a new deal for a new generation in order that our younger population is not left behind.

Supports like the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, have been a critical lifeline for workers and businesses. It is similar to one proposed by the Labour Party in the context of dealing with a potential no-deal Brexit a couple of short years ago. It would cost an additional €3.7 billion to extend the EWSS to the end of the year, but it would be money well spent.

It is less costly, as the Minister knows, to protect a job than to create a new one. There should be no cliff edge in ending many of the important lifelines available to businesses and workers at present.

Those on the employment wage subsidy scheme have, in many cases, seen their income drop. They are still at work but they have seen their incomes drop. Since last September, the Government has thrown them and hundreds of thousands of others on the pandemic unemployment payment at the mercy of their banks in terms of the mortgage difficulties they experience. The European Banking Authority states the Irish State can reintroduce a further mortgage moratorium to assist workers who have lost jobs and who are in reduced circumstances but the banking industry, aligned with the Department of Finance, tells us there is no demand. This is not how the Labour Party sees it and it is not our experience in our constituencies. If a moratorium is required then it is required now and it certainly will be required. With little prospect of a return to any kind of what we might term normal economic activity any time soon, structured mortgage breaks are absolutely required now.

Above all else, what citizens need now is a sense of hope, a sense of a new direction, a sense that lessons have been learned and a change of tack to tackle the virus head-on once and for all. As my colleague and our party leader, Deputy Alan Kelly, has said time and again, the people are way ahead of the politicians. They know the Government plan, for whatever it represented, is absolutely holed below the waterline. It is redundant and obsolete. It does not make sense. It has been brought into disrepute. It has absolutely no hope of succeeding. I appeal to the Minister to have the humility and grace to acknowledge a change of course is required and take the country in a different direction at this very challenging time. I am confident the people of this country would get behind him and get behind the Government if he were to commit to embarking on that journey before it is too late. It is not too late to change course. People need hope and a sense of vision that 2021 will be better than the catastrophic year experienced in 2020. They need hope of a better brighter future. The Minister needs to paint a picture of a brighter better post-pandemic Ireland. I appeal to him to support the motion and I ask the House to support the motion, to change direction and to tackle this unprecedented threat to the citizens of this country. It is required and it needs to be done now.

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