Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Covid-19 situation was developing, I voted give to give the Government these special emergency powers. I did so in good faith in the belief the powers would be used in good faith. Unfortunately, there have been too many examples of these restrictions being unnecessarily draconian and going beyond what I consider reasonable.

This has been shown on many occasions, not least when the Minister for Health said that priests would not be punished for saying mass only for that very thing to happen just a few weeks later. He still has not apologised for misleading the Dáil on the issue.

Another example was the use of these powers to close parks and other public places. I am fortunate enough to have a home in the country with a garden. Many people living in city centres do not have the same space and, therefore, the local park was very important to them. The Government banned people from using parks. Many public amenities were closed and certain areas of Dublin city are still closed off. It is madness.

A third example of these powers being used in bad faith was when services such as cancer screening and various treatments were stopped. How many missed or delayed cancer diagnoses have resulted from these restrictions? How many mental health issues have been caused by the restrictions? How many suicides did they cause? It seems the powers that be did not mind what a person died from as long as it was not Covid-19.

Was this a proportionate response? Was it really necessary to use these powers to stop people visiting family or meeting each other for a chat? We endured the longest lockdown in Europe, with contradictory and nonsensical rules being implemented. Adults have been treated like children. The nanny state has wrapped us in cotton wool. People who were sceptical about the lockdown approach were cast aside with ridicule while the professional curtain-twitchers and scaremongers were given a soapbox at almost every possible opportunity.

We have a virus that attacks the unhealthiest, yet the Government used the emergency powers to close down opportunities for people to exercise and stay healthy. The Government has used these powers to dictate to people when they can and cannot hug their relatives and made people afraid to visit a friend or relative living alone.

We cannot turn on our State broadcaster without hearing almost constant doom and gloom. The situation with the pandemic has changed dramatically. We have a vaccination programme. Most vulnerable people have been vaccinated. We must allow people to get back to normal. Why are we not doing that? Does the Government not trust the vaccines and the vaccine roll-out programme?

Now is an appropriate time for the Government to change its approach. To date, the approach has been to dictate and talk down to people. It is still imposing stupid guidelines such as the proposed 105-minute limit on visits to pubs and restaurants. I ask people to bear in mind that these are only guidelines. That particular guideline will encourage people to move around to multiple pubs. If a pub or restaurant wants to impose a time limit, that is fair enough, but it should be left to each business to decide for itself, depending on its circumstances. The attitude of the Government is that it knows best how people should live their lives. We must move away from dictating. The Government should provide the information and even advise people, but it must let them decide for themselves.

We saw fabulous performances in golf at the weekend by Shane Lowry and Pádraig Harrington in front of 10,000 spectators in the USA. In Europe, there were 7,500 people in the grandstand at the Monaco Grand Prix, 10,000 at a Premier League soccer match and 3,500 indoors at the Eurovision Song Contest. This coming weekend, 500 spectators will be allowed to attend National Football League games in Northern Ireland. Only a few days ago, the Down junior camogie team travelled to Taghmon, County Wexford, to play a National Football League game. The Down team was allowed to travel to Wexford on a bus but this weekend, when the Wexford team goes north to play Armagh, the members will not be allowed to travel together on a bus. Is Covid different here from anywhere else? Are we allowing fear and scaremongering to dominate?

Months ago, the Government was happy enough to keep level 5 restrictions in place for as long as it could get away with it. I called for a plan for how to get us out of level 5, which included the use of antigen testing. The latter is forming a key part in other countries' reopening plans, but a member of NPHET recently compared this type of testing with snake oil treatment. With attitudes like that, it is no wonder the Government has not seen a place for antigen testing. That needs to change. Michael Mina, professor of epidemiology at Harvard University, explained last week that antigen testing can be more useful than PCR testing, particularly for identifying whether somebody is infectious. In this country, the Government is dragging its heels on its introduction.

Covid-19 has introduced many new phrases into everyday conversation. One of those phrases, used regularly by the Government, is that we will "follow the science". It seems the Government is following the science when it suits and ignoring it when it might leave Ministers with egg on their face. For example, of the approximately 258,000 cases of Covid identified since the beginning of the pandemic, only 300 were associated with outdoor activity. Similar findings have been shown in studies across the world. Has the Government's approach changed based on this science? It is still keeping people from outdoor activities and it still has not allowed outdoor dining to resume. These things are happening throughout the world but we are still behind the curve.

We continue to hear scaremongering about new variants, even though the vaccines have been shown to work against them. We need to trust people to make decisions for themselves and get back to normality. We are being asked to extend emergency powers until November and possibly beyond. Those powers have been used to place draconian restrictions on people's freedom. They should only be in place when absolutely necessary. The test of the restrictions is whether they are necessary and appropriate and what are their consequences. I have weighed up the consequences we have seen over the past year and the fact that the vast majority of our vulnerable people have been vaccinated. I have come to the conclusion that allowing the Government to continue with these restrictions indefinitely is no longer necessary or proportionate. As a result, I will be voting against this Bill.

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