Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----I am more than happy to accept that with no problem whatsoever. However, I would point out that we all listened to the diatribe, quite frankly, from Deputy Mattie McGrath but we listened nonetheless. We did not keep jumping up like a jack-in-the-box and interrupting him. We do afford each other the space to make our points. Deputy Mattie McGrath might consider the same.

We have addressed the issue of Oireachtas oversight and transparency. We have addressed the issue of dates and why 9 November has been suggested and the substantive amendment for which I hope to get Government agreement tomorrow.

Other issues were raised on the details relating to the Mental Health Commission. I am very happy to ask the Department to provide colleagues with a report as to how it has worked. The briefing I have is that while the regulations have allowed for tribunals to be held by a single psychiatrist rather than by the normal three, this did not happen. When they were held remotely, the three-psychiatrist model was in use. It is my view, and it is view of the Mental Health Commission and the HSE, that we need to get back to in-person tribunals as quickly as possible. The HSE is in contact with the professional body and the professionals involved to bring this back as quickly as possible.

Questions were raised about the assessment of the regulations and what type of assessment is done before these regulations are brought in. I can share with colleagues there is a wide variety of assessments. There are public health assessments obviously, and social impact analysis and economic analysis is also done. This is considered by the Cabinet and, typically, by the Covid committee also. The measures are then introduced. Certainly the analysis and advice from NPHET is all available online. The minutes of the NPHET meetings are available. The analysis that NPHET considers, including the projections on epidemiology by Professor Nolan's group, is all available online, as are the letters from the Chief Medical Officer to me on his advice based on this analysis. A lot of analysis is available online. Somebody asked whether enforcement data could be published. My understanding is An Garda Síochána does publish the enforcement data as it pertains to the various offences.

Various other issues were raised. One was on the ability of groups such as the AA and other support groups for those in addiction to be able to meet up and for greater numbers to be accommodated. This is something I will certainly feed in.

There was very useful debate on human rights and the infringement on people's civil liberties that these regulations and measures cause. There is no question but that they do infringe and have infringed in serious ways and with very serious consequences, as we know. There has been huge hardship, isolation and loneliness. Many people are dealing with their mental health. Businesses have had to close. People have lost their livelihoods. People have not been able to travel. They have not been able to move far from where they live. People have not been able to mourn their friends and families in the way they normally would or attend weddings and celebrate the way they normally would. I assure colleagues that these things are taken very seriously and none of this is done lightly.

The other side of this is the right of people to be protected from the disease and the right of people to be able to live in a society in which appropriate measures are put in place to keep everybody safe and break the chains of transmission. It is a balance and I do not think there is any way of ever getting that balance perfectly right but we certainly try to do so. What colleagues will see is that as the risk of the disease to individuals has increased at certain times the measures have increased, and as the risk of the disease decreases, as it has now, the measures applied decrease correspondingly and, hopefully, proportionately although perhaps not always. Perhaps some measures should have been introduced earlier and some measures should have been got rid of earlier. The effort has always been to be proportionate and balance the measures against the risk to people's safety, lives, the healthcare system and, ultimately, to public health. I hope the meeting tomorrow will be very positive and that we will be able to relax further the measures insofar as possible.

I will make two final points. First, whatever we may think about the measures, they are working. Ireland has had one of the lowest excess mortality rates in the European Union during the pandemic. That is not to minimise what has happened or the pain and suffering caused by loss of life; I am just saying that compared with other countries of similar societal and economic make-ups, Ireland has a low excess mortality rate by those standards. We also achieved one of the earliest reopenings of primary and secondary schools, that is, in-person teaching, in Europe this year, which was one of the priorities. We saw an enormous fall in the number of cases from that very high peak in January. That worked very well. We know that in the past 12 days eight fatalities linked to Covid have been reported. Again, eight is eight too many but, relative to what we have been dealing with, that number is a sign that the most severe impacts of this awful pandemic are being dealt with, partly by the vaccine programme, obviously, but also partly because people have backed the measures. I know there are widely held views as to which measures were right and which measures were not right, but the reason they worked was that, broadly, I think people trusted the public health advice and complied with the measures to the best of their ability. The result of that is that an awful lot of lives have been saved and that we are now in a positive position for a sustainable exit from the pandemic.

Finally, I wish to take a moment to thank the Department of Health officials. I and many colleagues have quite rightly thanked the HSE, our healthcare workers and everybody who has been involved in our national response on numerous occasions. The Department of Health officials have tended not to get so much thanks but they have been working away in the background seven days a week and at all hours of the day. The Department has had its entire normal workload of the healthcare system increased by: the resumption of services; mandatory hotel quarantine; all the measures and the incredibly complex regulations that have to be done and redone; the entire vaccine programme; testing, tracing and genome sequencing; and all the other things we are aware of. The Department has done this with not a huge amount of additional resources. What has happened is that the same people have worked seven days a week, week after week. They start very early in the morning; I regularly talk to them at midnight. A vast amount of work goes into turning Government decisions into workable and reasonable regulations and public health measures. I will end by acknowledging the enormous work the Department of Health has done and continues to do through this pandemic.

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