Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Alan Kelly spoke at length in opening this debate, so I will not speak for too long. There are a couple of elements I wish to add. An issue I raised on Second Stage relates to seasonal workers. I would like to hear a response from the Minister on this issue. What is the plan for seasonal workers? Last year, they were deemed essential workers. It was the subject of significant debate in terms of their treatment. There is a wider debate and wider issue in terms of their low pay, treatment, exploitation as a group of workers. That remains, unfortunately. However, from a public health point of view, will seasonal workers coming in to work in the agricultural industry in particular be subject to mandatory hotel quarantining? They should be and I and my colleagues hope that they will be, but we need clarification in that regard. Beyond that, another crucial point is whether engagement has taken place with the agricultural industry and the employers regarding the conditions under which these workers will work and, indeed, live.

The conditions in which an awful lot of these workers live were highlighted last spring and summer, in the early part of this pandemic, to people beyond those who knew about it already. Three, four or five adults may be sharing a room, sink and toilet. Those are poor conditions and not conducive to living in a pandemic such as this. Have any changes been made in that regard? I hope so, because there has been no shortage of debate on the issue and concern was raised early in the pandemic. There is no excuse for progress not to have been made.

There are a number of different elements to the issue, including the designation of these seasonal workers as essential workers. Will they be subject to mandatory hotel quarantine? I am coming from a point of concern and care about the health of those workers and I want to make that abundantly clear. My concern is that there are loopholes in the existing legislation and the regulations that exist now, as a result of which workers may be being brought into this country right now and working and living in conditions that will damage their health if any of the strains of the virus get into their accommodation, as has happened previously. We saw it with the meat plant workers. There are also growers. Many other parts of the agricultural industry have used workers such as these over the years. This important point needs clarification.

I reflected on the Second Stage debate. Other contributors to the debate have spoken to the fact that this legislation does not seem to be connected to other elements of the public health response. That may sound unfair but it is how I and many others feel. On the suppression strategy within the community, the levels of community transmission remain high. We still are not getting the detail we need as to why that is the case. Where are the outbreaks taking place? How is the virus transmitting within the community? I think compliance generally remains very good but with numbers remaining high and no detail coming from Government on the issue, rumour mills and the blame game start. Young people are blamed for meeting in parks and this, that and all the rest are blamed when probably none of them are the cause of high transmission levels. We need to know. We have no suppression strategy based on a testing and tracing regime that will be rigorous enough to get infection numbers down to low double digits or single figures and keep them there. This mandatory hotel quarantining legislation seems to have been brought in tangentially to all the other measures. It is peculiar because one would think even at this stage, when the legislation is not going to be operational for another few weeks, that we would at least have details about which hotels will be used, which companies will be used for security and food, and all the operational aspects of the strategy. Those details are not there either. Our concern is whether this is going to happen at all.

St. Patrick's Day is coming up. We know that the country is shut down but 10,000 people came into the country through Dublin Airport this time last year. Is the Government aware of how many people are due to come into the country on St. Patrick's weekend? Those people may have booked a year or 18 months ago and are still going to come. Perhaps nobody will come and everyone has cancelled but perhaps they have not. Is there a reason that these measures are being delayed to such an extent? It is absolutely incredible that there was no draft legislation prepared on this issue in 2020. Even Opposition parties and groups with small numbers of Members and resources that are nothing compared to the resources of Government Departments have legislation on various matters. It is on the shelf and ready to go. To think that there was no draft legislation on this issue beggars belief. It is now the last week of February, three weeks before St. Patrick's Day, and we are told that this legislation will not be operational for a couple of weeks.

We hope the vaccine roll-out improves and goes well. The evenings are brighter. We hope the numbers of infection go down but that is all hit-and-hope stuff, rather than any kind of tangible strategy we can look at and in which we can believe. Elements of this Government may believe they will not have to bring in these measures. That is why I feel that an element of this exercise is quite surreal. This debate should be much more energised and feel much more important but for the second session in a row, the Minister is cutting a lonely figure on the Government side of the House. The energy, interest and desire for this legislation to be as workable and strong as possible are coming from this side of the House. That is a concern.

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