Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. What it does is to continue the extraordinary emergency legislation due to expire on 9 June and the Government is extending it to 9 November 2021.

It may be further extended for up to three months at a time by resolution passed by each House of the Oireachtas. These include measures in section 1 of the Health (Preservation and Protection and other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Act 2020, section 17 of the Criminal Justice (Enforcement Powers) (Covid-19) Act 2020 and section 6 of the Health (Amendment) Act 2020.

These were extraordinarily draconian pieces of legislation as we watched what was happening across the sea, and in Italy where hospitals were overwhelmed and could not cope with the amount of people becoming ill, and the high rates of deaths. Hospitals were being built in China to cater for the sick and dying. We were dealing with an unknown virus. We did not know how it was spread or whether it was airborne only or on surfaces. There were people wiping down their shopping when it home and wiping their door handles in their home because they were fearful of contracting the virus. It went against all my political principles and instincts to give more power to the State to curtail people's freedoms and human rights and the same can be said of many Members of the Dáil and Seanad.

This debate is about extending the legislation and whether there is a basis for it to remain, particularly now that the vaccination programme appears very effective in stopping the rate of infection and it being passed on, although we do not have peer reviewed information. Recent reports from Israel suggest that the virus is not passed on to others after vaccination, but that will have to be reviewed after a period of time. It is stopping people getting ill and helping stop deaths from the virus. It is fantastic that science could develop these vaccines at the speed it did. Saying that, I am appalled that the pharmaceutical companies have resisted waiving intellectual property rights to the vaccines and sharing their know-how, technology and ingredients to enable greater levels of manufacture in the world, as well as by some of the countries that have grabbed practically all the world's vaccines, including in Europe, Canada and the USA, although it has recently changed its position.

The position we have adopted of not pushing Europe to support the TRIPS waiver is logical based on some this Government's decisions. While I welcome everyone in Ireland getting the vaccine we cannot be comfortable or smug when two thirds of the world's population will not get the vaccine until 2022 or early 2023 if we continue distributing the vaccine as we have. That increases the likelihood of more dangerous variants. That is one reason why Ireland should urge the Government to support the TRIPS waiver and get the vaccine manufactured as quickly as possible throughout the world to protect everybody.

The information to date on the Indian variant B.1.617 is that it decreases the efficacy of the vaccines, particularly where people have only received their first doses of AstraZeneca and Pfizer. Considering that many 60 to 70 year olds, and 50 to 59 year olds and people in cohort 4, who are very high risk, and cohort 7, receive AstraZeneca and are waiting on their second dose which gives people more protection against the B.1.617 Indian variant, we must be cautious. We do not know the impact of the variant on public health. I know someone who has cystic fibrosis who will not receive their second dose until mid-June. Many of those over 69 years will not receive their second vaccination until June and July. These are the people who are most vulnerable and those who we want to protect more. We have to move with caution on this for the moment.

Some 73% of people in Britain have received their first dose and 35% have had their second. Northern Ireland is now vaccinating those aged 18 years and over. Because of the threat of the Indian variant England has shortened the window between the first and second doses of AstraZeneca from 12 to eight weeks.

I listened to the Minister for Health this morning talking about supply. It seems that of the 600,000 Jansen vaccines promised, we might only receive 60,000. That is a blow for the programme. In the British Medical Journal public health experts have said the Indian variant has fundamentally changed the risk faced in their country. We have to take what they are saying on board and learn from their response and their information. In Ireland on 15 May, there were 41 cases of the Indian variant. There were 59 cases in the middle of that week and on 21 May there were 72 cases. Those are the cases we know of but there might be more. I urge the Minster to go back to NIAC and see if there is a case for shortening the 12 week window. I know the 12 weeks was shortened from 16 weeks, but we should shorten it again to eight weeks if we can because if the Indian variant is so infectious and the protection of the first dose is down to 30%, we must protect people and stop a situation where the virus can develop.

We are debating legislation, but earlier I heard a Deputy say we had handled it well. I do not think we did. We have a lot of questions to ask and lessons to learn. During the first restrictions, where there was huge community support and back-up in towns, villages and cities across the country, there was an opportunity to reach zero Covid. When we came out of the first restrictions, the cases were down to very low numbers. The Government did not take the advice of NPHET about introducing mandatory hotel quarantine. We did not handle our nursing homes well or our direct provision centres. We continued to allow people to travel even though others were liable to a penalty if they were 5 km or 20 km outside their homes. Then we had the Spanish variant, the Kent variant and now the Indian variant is in our community. The Minister said earlier that we would have got the Kent variant in any case, but had we had mandatory hotel quarantine in place much earlier, travelling to Ireland would not have even occurred to many of the people who did come for the so-called meaningful Christmas. That would have had an impact on the numbers travelling, as they would have questioned travelling.

Deputy Ó Cuív is right. The people are ahead of the Government on this. Generally, when they see dangerous situations looming they respond positively. From the feedback I am getting, people are losing trust in the Government. Many of the emails we receive are expressing genuine concerns, although some are not.

We should not be basing our approach on that but we should be noting that people are getting frustrated. They want to know what is happening, they want transparency and they want to have the position explained to them. Once we explain logically why we are adopting a certain position, people will understand the logic and support it. We have tabled an amendment to ensure a review on 9 September rather than in November.

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