Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The Government relented to the retail and hospitality lobby and opened up in the run-up to Christmas. This created a perfect storm for the virus with deadly consequences. We need a radically different approach to that of bending to the will of business interests. Instead, we need an approach that will put the interests of public health first. We need to go after this virus and repress it to single digit cases, speed up the vaccine programme, roll out mass testing and repress it further, thereby avoiding the need for yo-yo lockdowns and saving lives. The failure of governments to repress the virus has led to the development of new strains. This danger will continue due to vaccine hoarding by richer states and profiteering by the pharmaceutical industry, which is putting the vaccines out of the reach of the majority of the world's population for the foreseeable future.

The emergence of new strains, combined with the need to repress the virus, points to the necessity for a very serious approach to international travel. We agree on the need for all people entering the State to undergo a quarantine of 14 days. There are legitimate fears about quarantines not been properly respected. There have been cases of outbreaks linked to travel, especially over the summer when tourism travel was permitted and even promoted. There needs to be a significant boost to the resources given to assisting and checking people who are quarantining.

This is not enough. Despite coming forward with the Bill, the Government has still not banned non-essential international travel. It is still possible to board a flight to or from here without having to show the trip is essential. This should be the case. For those who must travel, if travel is essential, there should be an obligation to have a negative test before travel and for quarantine to be respected and checked by public health officials. In fact, more resources need to be put into this. People in this situation must be given information, advice and support to quarantine effectively, including income support to remove an economic push for people to break quarantine. Hotel facilities should be provided free of charge for people to quarantine safely where they feel they cannot otherwise do so such as, for example, people in crowded housing situations.

There is clearly a strong case for extreme caution with regard to people travelling from areas with high levels of infection or where new more virulent or dangerous strains of Covid are circulating. However, we in Solidarity have serious concerns about the legislation. The plan put forward in the Bill represents a very serious restriction on civil liberties. Of course, we all have had impacts on our civil liberties due to public health measures but this is a form of detention without trial, with people being kept in solitary confinement for a period of two weeks. We must be extremely cautious in giving the State these powers.

We note and agree with the concerns raised by the Irish Council of Civil Liberties and Nasc about the Bill. The ICCL points to the need for any measure that is a severe restriction on civil liberties to be proportionate to the public health risks and for the right of detainees to access medical and legal services, to have a system of inspections and for facilities to be staffed with fully trained individuals who understand their duty of care to detainees. Nasc, which advocates for refugees and asylum seekers, has pointed out how the Bill will disproportionately impact a small but highly vulnerable number of refugees and family members.

Of particular concern is the manner in which these facilities will be outsourced to the private sector. Giving private profit-maximising companies the right to preside over the detention of people with next to or no real oversight is very problematic. The profit motive will mean an incentive for skimping on facilities for detainees, on staffing levels and on infection control. Many of the people entering these facilities will be in vulnerable situations, for example, people returning from family crises, elderly people, people who do not speak English and people with physical and mental health difficulties but no real protections or provisions for their needs are outlined in the Bill.

The charging of the full cost of the centres to the travellers, estimated at approximately €2,000, will give a massive incentive to people to travel indirectly and to not declare themselves upon entry. These facilities need to be provided free of charge and run on a not-for-profit basis. Profiteering from these facilities will also give an economic incentive for private companies to push for these facilities to last longer than is warranted by public health advice. There is a danger that this quarantine policy could, therefore, develop into a more long-term attack on the rights of migrants, with people from poorer parts of the world particularly affected as the wealthy nations hoard the vaccines and leave them to suffer the virus for longer.

We need to suppress the virus. As part of this, we need to take serious steps on international travel but it would be foolish to allow the State and private companies this level of power, which can lead to a myriad of abuses. For these reasons, and for others I will outline on Committee Stage, I will not support the Bill.

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