Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, Minister after Minister was wheeled out to say that there was light at the end of the tunnel but what they did not say was that for many people that tunnel is getting longer. All of the Government's plans indicated yesterday were dependent on vaccine timescales but to date it has missed every one of those. I am doing my best, like many other people, to stay positive with regard to the situation we are in but the plans the Government indicated yesterday could very well be rolled out further into the future if it does not meet the vaccination timescales it set out.

It must be remembered that this Government has implemented the longest lockdown workplace closure in Europe. People looking at this pandemic often say that every country is dealing with the same issue but the truth of the matter is that this Government has been an outlier in its dependence on blanket lockdowns. The length of time we have been locked down is a multiple of the time many other countries have been locked down and we have not seen the benefits in terms of improved mortality and morbidity figures.

I have raised the issue of cancer services that have been partially stopped. That is a serious issue that has to be dealt with. I have also raised the fact that, currently, 9,000 people in this State are homeless. Seventy-nine people died in homelessness in Dublin last year yet building sites to be used for building homes are closed. We can build State homes, which I welcome 100%, but building them is not any safer than building private homes.

I have raised the fact that outdoor sports for children are still blocked. Parks will be full this weekend but if we give them a golf club those people will have to walk home.

An issue that has not been raised in the past 24 hours is the extraordinary information about religious services in this coming Easter weekend. Ireland is in an infamous group of nations where there is a full ban on religious services. North Korea and Saudi Arabia are practically the only other countries that are banning religious services. I was shocked that the Fianna Fáil Taoiseach basically placed religious services at the same level as visits to museums. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that the practice of religion is a human right. For millions of people in this State it is an essential element of their lives. That a Fianna Fáil Minister would literally place that human right at the same level as visiting a museum is incredible.

I raise the issue of what I believe are the Government's poor efforts with regard to the procurement of additional vaccines outside and in addition to the European supply chain. It has failed to seek vaccines outside that supply chain. When the Taoiseach met President Joe Biden online on St. Patrick's Day, despite the close personal ties between the two countries there was not an effort to secure vaccines from the President. Believe it or not, we now have a situation where the British are telling Ireland that they will give us their excess vaccines. We are in an embarrassing situation now where this country may have to go cap in hand to our near neighbour to seek excess vaccines.

The European Union's approach to this illness has been a disaster. I welcome the mention by the Government Deputy of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. From the start of the pandemic, it told governments not to stop the movement of people within the European Union. That has been a serious and damaging mistake on the part of the Government.

Europe has purchased enough vaccines to vaccinate the entire population of the European Union twice over but it is way behind many other organisations in the world in that regard. Britain has administered more than 34 million vaccines while the country with the closest figure in the European Union - Germany - has administered less than one third of that number. There are vaccines by their thousands in storehouses throughout Europe yet they are not being made available to countries like Ireland. The European Union is exporting millions of vaccines outside the European Union yet they are not available to countries like Ireland.

I raise also the fact that Ireland's income from the European recovery fund was slashed recently by hundreds of millions of euro. The calibre of our team battling for Ireland's economic interests at the heart of the European Union at a time of serious economic crisis worries me. It must be remembered that by 2025, this country will have built up a national debt of €270 billion. Every worker in the State will owe €100,000. That will be the third highest public state debt per capitain the world yet the European Union is slashing the amount of money being given to Ireland because of our hocus-pocus GDP figures. Our hocus-pocus GDP figures, or leprechaun economics that Paul Krugman mentioned, have us on the hook for massive investments into the European Union on an annual basis.

We are seeing the pharmaceutical and technology sectors in this country doing well but the domestic sector is being gutted. It needs radical investment. This is no time for the so-called European solidarity to be switched off. I urge the Government to fight for our economic interests in the European Union.

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