Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

While this Bill is important, just as important is the debate that surrounds it. We have been consistent in backing the public health guidelines while calling for proper measures on quarantine, track and trace and vaccine roll-out but we also believe the restrictions must be proportionate. It is these fundamentals that the Government needs to get right and I believe there have been many failings in doing so.

On looking at the Preamble, everyone accepts that "a public emergency has arisen" and as for "extraordinary measures", Deputy Martin Kenny has noted that 14,000 people have been fined for leaving their homes. The debate, however, turns to liberty being fundamental in any republic. At times, citizens have had to resort to the High Court to test the proportionality as to whether some of the restrictions have been fair. The Preamble goes on to state "the trajectory of that disease continues to be precarious", and while the number of cases was 1,200 in October, down to 162 in December and back up to 8,000 in January, they have reduced a great deal since then. There is a balancing act between the rights of citizens to life and bodily integrity and those of liberty.

It is true what the previous speakers have said about the sacrifices that have been made by all citizens in this country. I refer to sacrifices in education and in employment but also sacrifices that have resulted in an increase in domestic violence and an increase in drug taking.

We have come to a point where in my constituency of Kerry, there have been only two or three cases in hospitals over the past five weeks. People cannot attend matches. People cannot go for a 5 km run for a charity event. The work on the greenways in Kerry more or less stopped because of the restrictions. The county clean-up day was ceased because, according to the local authority, if there were half a dozen people on a country road on a Sunday morning, that was an organised event and it could not take place. It was ridiculous.

There is another aspect in which the Government has failed, namely, in the establishment of clear guidelines grounded in law and in medical evidence in which the public can have faith. The Government asked the Dáil to debate changes to the Health Act which enabled a statutory instrument which would have compelled the businesses to keep receipts but then backed away from that. They allowed for ambiguities to be built up between public health guidelines and what was a matter of criminal law. Legal sanctions were used inappropriately, even against the advice of Dr. Holohan, who warned of certain activities being driven underground.

Most importantly, the Government has consistently not communicated the risks of indoor versus outdoor activity. I refer to the recent fiasco over the Clare-Wexford game. Fifteen months on, has anybody looked at the evidence of transmission in outdoor sports? Has anyone analysed the data or are there any data to say that two players who marked two other players on a pitch which is 150 yd long could possibly be a close contact? It cannot be the case. I am worried that this completely risk-averse type of call could make prisoners of us all. The Government will have to make a call and not hide behind advice without testing it to the hilt given the sacrifices that I have already mentioned that have taken place. Otherwise it is bad news for the workers in aviation who are standing outside the conference centre today, who have argued for the antigen testing that is acceptable in 15 other countries. Football matches still cannot continue and as we look across to the Six Counties and across the water, we see the opening of outdoor activities there.

I have been involved in park runs for the past few years. It is a brilliant voluntary community-led activity that 12,000 participate in weekly. It is still off the table. Eighty thousand people undertake 650,000 runs or walks. As for the participants, 7% have a disability, 17% are from the lowest socioeconomic percentile and 50% are women, all groups that have been heavily impacted by Covid-19 restrictions. I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, for having met organisers this morning to consider a trial run. While elite sports have their advocates, unfortunately, runs and social events such as Park Run do not have that kind of slick PR machine behind them. There is no reason that I can see why those events cannot take place as soon as possible. Otherwise there is no benefit to the vaccine roll-out.

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