Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The public has put significant effort into the battle against Covid and has placed significant faith into the vaccination programme. The Minister and I both agree that we simply cannot disappoint these people. NPHET and the Government have significant decisions to make over the coming days but the reality is that the public needs to see the start of a pathway out of lockdown. At the end of the month, we will be 13 weeks into the current lockdown, and businesses need to know a start date, whether that is May, June or July. They certainly need some sort of signposting. We need to allow children back to play and practise sport or hobbies. They have lost out on the guts of a crucial year of their development and it is time to restart for them, especially as the evenings are getting longer.

As we approach the most important date in the Christian calendar, it is important that people of faith will be able to celebrate Easter in churches this year. The 5 km limit has outlived its usefulness and we need to look at allowing travel within counties. It is time for golf and other individual sports, such as fishing, to resume in a controlled environment, because all of these can be done in a controlled manner and people have proven sensible in the past. The retail and hospitality sectors need to see a roadmap. They need at least indicative start dates that they can work towards. They have lost staff, customers and suppliers. They will need to rebuild and cannot be restarted overnight. These are small steps but I feel that it is critical that, in the coming days, we give some indication of when activity can start to return.

I am pleased to see that the vaccination programme will ramp up in the second quarter. It is good to see that we have nailed down the supply for the next three months. These are potentially the three most important months in the modern history of this country. I thank the Minister for the work he has put in to this. If we can get these three months right, it will mark a turning point. As we look ahead to these three months and the implementation of the vaccination programme in earnest, it is also critical that next week sees the delivery of a message to the public that states that we are in this together and on a journey together. The public needs to see that pathway.

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