Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. I regard religious worship as a very fundamental right in any democratic society. We should acknowledge that the application of very stringent public health emergency legislation imposes many restrictions on personal and civil liberties. We rarely in ordinary times would apply such restrictions more generally on people. A global pandemic is such a context. It is the common good which must prevail in such a pandemic. I have had a number of meetings. I met in October with representatives of the Catholic Church and met with the wider faith groups on 17 November and again with the Catholic archbishops on 19 February. I met with church leaders, particularly those from of Northern Ireland in the context of Northen Ireland and not of Covid-19 restrictions, on 15 April. That meeting was about recent developments in the North and about emerging from Covid-19 in an inclusive way in terms of the left behind and marginalised communities and to ensure that, economically, we would be more inclusive. There were brief references to Covid-19 at the end of that meeting.

It was unanimous that religious ceremonies would not take place under level 5 restrictions. There was no argument about that. In fact, the request made in October by church leaders was that they were annoyed that religious services and ceremonies were excluded at level 3 and they wanted the Government to consider facilitating Mass and religious services generally under level 3, which we facilitated for Christmas. We facilitated that for Christmas. At the meeting in February, two requests were made, namely, to consider allowing religious worship and Mass for the Easter ceremonies and also to look at increasing the number allowed at funerals, which we are doing next Monday. We have decided to increase that to 25, which is still very difficult for families and people who have suffered bereavement. I think that is one of the worst aspects of Covid-19.

However, I think it needs to be said loud and clear that the only motivation of the Government is to protect life and to protect people from severe illness. There is no other motivation. The Government is not anti-religious. It is not out to suppress religious worship. Any suggestion to the contrary is deeply offensive, wrong and unfair. We are motivated by public health and the guidance and advice we receive from NPHET and public health. The regulation to which the Deputy is referring is a general regulation that covers all indoor gatherings. Internationally, indoor gatherings have proven to be responsible for a lot of spread of Covid. We will be looking at this situation next week. I stated in my address at the end of March that we would look at religious services in the context of the month of May.

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