Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

A total of 480 people will get cancer today. Tragically, 24 people will die from cancer today. According to the experts, as a result of the cancellation and reduction in cancer treatments by the Government there will be an influx of massively advanced cancers. By any measure, that is an absolute disgrace. This week we hear that the Government will not resume cancer services fully until the end of 2021. How can the Minister stand over that? Will he reopen cancer services now?

I believe the management of this particular illness has been shocking. We have been locked down for nearly 190 days in this State. That is multiples of what other countries in Europe have experienced, many with similar mortality and morbidity rates. People across the country are massively frustrated. They are angry at the glacial rate of Government action. It has taken a year for mandatory quarantine to be introduced. People are shockingly frustrated about our vaccine roll-out compared with the North of Ireland.

People are being told that there is light at the end of the tunnel but that tunnel is getting longer and longer. Will the Minister tell the people the criteria for opening up this country? What cohorts of people, in his view, need to be vaccinated before we open up? What rate of hospital and ICU admissions do we need to get to for this country to be opened up? People are sick of being treated like children. We need to tell them the truth with regard to a pathway to opening up.

Like the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, I have real problems with the European talk of vaccine passports. Vaccine passports at European level would create a two-tier citizenship. Those with a vaccine passport will be entitled to freedoms and those without would be denied them. Given that so many people are being denied a vaccine, it would be a kick in the teeth to say to them that their freedoms will continuously be denied with the introduction of a vaccine passport.

I have two final questions. First, did the Taoiseach ask President Joe Biden for vaccines? Second, will the Minister clarify if people who have been vaccinated abroad will be quarantined when they come to Ireland as travellers?

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