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

I am sure the Deputy will agree and appreciate that the way things are heard is not always what was said or what was meant. That applies even without being misrepresented. Something a person says or means can be heard in a different way. Anyway, I am happy once again to clarify the point. Anything that will save hundreds or thousands of lives is proportionate in my view. We may run into a legal issue around proportionality. I have explained to the House that this may arise.

I agree with the Deputy's question and comment. We need to get numbers down as low as possible before we can safety reopen our society and economy. I believe that is what all of us in the House want. There is little point in reopening things one then has to close three weeks later. That is why we need to get numbers down as low as we possibly can. We simply do not know what that is in the current context.

A question was asked about international travel. As Deputies know, the Government has already introduced polymerase chain reaction, PCR, testing. We did that in January. We have already introduced mandatory home quarantine. We did that some weeks ago. We will be extending the number of countries included in the category 2 list. These are countries for which mandatory hotel quarantine is required. There are 18 countries, including 16 in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Austria and the United Arab Emirates. They have been added to Brazil and South Africa.

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