Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is no exaggeration to say that the population is becoming traumatised by the continuing effects of Covid-19. This is the last time we should ask the Irish people to continue with level 5 restrictions, albeit softening them slowly. There is no doubt that significant mental stress has resulted for many in the population. This has been particularly so for the education sector, especially special education and the many teachers, carers, parents and pupils. The latest announcements regarding the return to school are welcome, especially for leaving certificate students, early years education and those in special education.

Like many others, I welcome the re-prioritisation of vulnerable and immunosuppressed people in the vaccination schedule. I believe the Government will also have to consider some cohorts in the carer sector for priority vaccination, given the exceptional difficulty that could occur for a vulnerable person if the person's carer becomes indisposed due to Covid-19.

However, even as the Government commits to schooling and vaccination, there is very little in the plan for the private business sector or for those who depend on the hospitality and tourism sectors for their livelihood. We all understand that transmission of the virus is the arbiter of opening up the economy but significant questions remain for me and many others. What is the overall action plan, aside from waiting on sufficient vaccine supply, to prise ourselves out of this situation? The vaccine strategy is fraught with danger on two levels in particular. One is that we may not secure appropriate supplies for a considerable length of time. For all the time that we depend solely on a vaccine fix, we risk a new variant of Covid coming into the country and undoing all the hard work the population has done to date. We have seen how the British variant has become the dominant strain in less than 12 weeks, and the Brazilian variant has been identified in the North of Ireland. How can we protect our future, hard-won gains if we cannot protect our borders and the movement of people throughout our country? We have had months to consider border restrictions and full quarantine, yet we faced waiting for weeks for legislation to be drafted. This can hardly be deemed to be acceptable.

Along with the furloughed economy, there is now a tsunami of deferred activity in the hospital sector, with waiting lists doubling from the position 12 months ago. One of the services that is restarting is BreastCheck, which has been closed for many months and has over 240,000 on the mammogram waiting list. This scanning was deemed unsafe due to Covid transmission rates, but how is it there was no proposal to try to provide screen testing to BreastCheck patients in advance of their scans to keep the service operational? This sounds like failure, not fail-safe. The same rationale applies to many other activities, both public and private, that are currently furloughed. Could our health experts not follow the leads of countries such as England, Germany, France and the US and implement antigen screen testing in many of our work settings? What is to stop us screen testing construction workers every two days using antigen tests, to open the construction sector and monitor the testing effectiveness? There are many other sectors and areas that could benefit from this approach.

The current planned pathway gives nothing certain to the business sector other than the promise of continuing support, which, for many, is like pumping oxygen into a dead body.

Many private business owners are facing significant warehoused debt and demands for rent and utilities. Moreover, they are incurring significant interest penalties on long-term loans on which the banks are once again looking for payment. Many owners know full well that when they resume trading, their revenue will be a fraction of it was pre-Covid and is likely to remain that way, leaving their business technically insolvent. These businesses need something like certainty.

The Government should implement the kind of steps that were spoken about early on in the crisis, namely, widespread population screening, rigorous testing and border controls. I do not think that we can continue to limp along, waiting on European medicine supplies to fully deliver us from this crisis. We need to find new ways to live with this virus while we wait for the technology, which hopefully will fully eradicate it in the future.

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