Dáil debates

Wednesday, 2 June 2021

Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages

 

6:05 pm

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak to amendment No. 3. In February and March of last year, we were all confronted with a pandemic and a deadly virus that none of us at the time understood and we did not know the full extent of the damage that virus would do. It has been an horrendous time ever since, during which the State and every other country has had to deal with a global pandemic, where a large number of people have lost their lives and a lot of damage has been done socially and economically, and to people's mental health. Nobody in this Chamber underestimates the scale of the challenge that presented to this State, its agencies and Departments. There is a reality that most of us in opposition accept, which is that to position the State to respond to what was a deadly virus and a very dangerous pandemic, we needed to have public health measures and public health interventions. There has been a lot of support from the Opposition in regard not to supporting the Government but to supporting public health measures that were necessary to ensure our health services were not overwhelmed and we could keep people safe and, in reality, to keep them alive, because we could see what was happening in other parts of the world that had very high transmission rates before the virus got here where people were dying in big numbers.

Circumstances have changed substantially since then. After the Minister first came before the Dáil and sought the emergency powers that he was given, the goodwill shown by Members of the Opposition was squandered. I have said this to the Minister time and again. It was squandered for two reasons. The first was the nature of some of the regulations that he then brought in as a consequence of the emergency powers that he had been given. Some of them were ill-thought-out, others were plain daft and silly but all of them were brought in without Dáil scrutiny of any kind. As I said to the Minister in the past, not only was there no Dáil scrutiny of any kind, there was no consultation and certainly no debate in this House, and not even a heads-up that those regulations would be published. Very often, we would be contacted by the media, asking for responses to regulations that had just been published on the Government website. That is how the Opposition was treated after the goodwill demonstrated to put in place the emergency powers and public health measures that were necessary.

When goodwill is squandered, the Minister cannot seriously come back in time and again and expect the same result, and expect the Opposition to continue to expand emergency powers which are quite extraordinary. These are emergency powers which have never been given to a Minister before in the magnitude of their powers and their draconian nature. The Minister himself used the word "draconian", and that is what they are. That goodwill has long been squandered.

I cannot credibly support this Bill in the absence of any Opposition amendments. Deputies Catherine Murphy and Naughten asked the Minister earlier if he was going to accept any of the Opposition amendments. He said that he would wait and listen to the debate and take them amendment by amendment. I would hazard a guess - maybe I am wrong - that he will not accept any of them. I hope that I am wrong but let us see - if the Seanad exchanges are anything to go by, then I certainly hold out no hope at all. I think that is disappointing.

In his Second Stage speech, the Minister trumpeted the amendments he has brought forward as some sort of concession or an effort to meet people half way by only having one opportunity to come back again by way of resolution to extend the measures further if necessary. That is not half enough. The amendments we tabled, including the one that I am speaking to now, ask that the Minster come back towards the end of this month or early July to seek approval again if it was necessary to extend the emergency powers. I accept that it is not possible to unwind every public health measure. There are simple things like having to wear a mask and of course we want those to remain in place, but many of the emergency powers which the Minister has been given will not be necessary and hopefully will not be necessary again. We are starting to unwind many of the restrictions, which we all support and celebrate, and we want to do more of that. However, to ask the Members of the House, Opposition and Government Deputies, to extend those emergency powers until November this year is really a stretch. I cannot understand why the Minister has opted for so long a time. He could have gone for a shorter timeframe or even engaged with the Opposition, but there was no discussion on the heads of the Bill and no prelegislative scrutiny because of the rushed nature of the Bill. We had a briefing from the Minister's officials who told us they were aware of the need for a Bill from as far back as late March, early April yet the Opposition and members of the Joint Committee on Health were not informed until the last minute when everything was rushed again when we were asked to rubber stamp it and push it through because the Minister wanted to extend it until the end of November.

I will finish on this because many speakers want to contribute and everyone who wants to speak should have the opportunity to do so. There can be no more blank cheques for the Minister because when he got a blank cheque before, that was a leap of faith to give him powers to make regulations. Sometimes that was thrown back in our faces and I resent that. That is not how the Opposition should be treated. Some of the more colourful emails we have received were mentioned earlier. Many people have contacted us who are genuine in saying that they do not want us to extend these powers because of some of the Minister's misuse of the regulations he brought forward in the past and because we are being asked to extend them until November of this year and they simply do not see the sense in it. I have to say that I agree, and for that reason, if the Minister does not accept any of the amendments which have been tabled here today, certainly the ones Sinn Féin has tabled, I will not be in a position to support the Bill.

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