Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I said on 21 June that a plain reading of the licensing laws would indicate that serving alcohol in the new temporary areas on streets and public spaces that have been set up for pubs is not permitted, despite local authorities granting permission for it. I also said that both the Garda and publicans and restaurateurs need certainty in this regard. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, said that same day, in essence, that she had talked to the Garda Commissioner and that discretion would be applied. For weeks, the Government talked about an outdoor summer, with outdoor dining a key strategy of facilitating a summer in Ireland in Covid times. Dining outdoors was to be the hallmark of the summer but the Government did not bother to ensure its clear national strategy was lawful. The State invested €17 million to provide for temporary spaces and to make this policy a reality. Local authorities set about designating areas and providing grants for outdoor furniture, canopies etc. for restaurants and pubs. It did not take long for the Minister's strategy to change from one of saying the Garda would look the other way to one of stating we should fix this legal difficulty that needs to be properly addressed. I welcome the presentation of this Bill, although it should have been envisaged and presented well before now.

The Government decision to allow only those who are fully vaccinated to partake of indoor dining will significantly undermine public confidence in the overall health measures that are still required to keep people safe, probably more so than ever in the context of the Delta variant. We must explain what is being done and bring people with us. That surely is the message of the past 18 months. With its notion of separate categories of vaccinated and unvaccinated, the Government is offloading responsibility to restaurateurs and publicans to separate customers, potentially dividing families or groups of friends. The requirement for certification will cause confusion and create a burden and angst for restaurateurs and publicans, who have already been crucified for the past 18 months. All the while, these same sectors will depend on unvaccinated younger staff to serve customers. If the Government wanted to create a point of conflict, it has done so here. In simple logic, the notion of a young person who is unvaccinated being expected to work for six or seven hours on five or six days of the week in a pub but not being allowed to go into the same pub on his or her day off for fear of being contaminated, after spending the whole week in it, makes no sense. We must anchor our strategy in sense and bring people with us.

Then there is the anomaly whereby in-house dining for guests of hotels has been available, lawfully and properly, since early June. In effect, the message is that if people pay for an overnight stay in a hotel, then the health difficulties evaporate. That cannot be the basis of a sound health strategy. I know these are difficult decisions for the Government. No one is suggesting anything else. However, the public wants common sense and clear explanations based on medical advice. At the same time, such advice is not dogma, as we have seen. For example, in the six months since AstraZeneca was made available in this country, it was not initially forbidden by NIAC to be given to the over-70s, then it was only to be given to the over-60s, after which it was not to be given to the under-50s. Now we are told it can, in fact, be given to people aged under 50.

Originally, a second dose would be given after only 12 weeks. Then it was 16 weeks, then eight weeks and now apparently it is four weeks. Medical advice, therefore, is not dogma. The Government will rightly say the advice changes because the circumstances change but in any other sphere of public policy that many changes would temper a government's dependence on the correctness of advice given and it would ensure such advice was very carefully evaluated in the context of all other issues, including external advices and what is happening in other jurisdictions.

On AstraZeneca, I should also state that three quarters of the 60- to 69-year-old age cohort have received only one dose to date. That is a fact. Three quarters of those in that vulnerable age group have received only one dose and are consequently only 30% protected against the Delta variant. That is a fundamental failure of Government policy. The US Centre for Disease Control, CDC, in data published on 24 June, set out the ratio of hospitalisation and death from Covid-19 by age. Compared to the 18- to 29-year-old cohort those aged between 65 and 74 years are six times more likely to be hospitalised and a staggering 95 times more likely to die. That is worth reflecting upon. Those aged between 50 and 64 years are four times more likely to be hospitalised and 35 times more likely to die of Covid in comparison to 18- to 29-year-olds. Despite this, three quarters of people in that age cohort, who are multiple times more vulnerable to hospitalisation and death, have not been vaccinated while younger cohorts have. Since Government policy from the outset of this has been based on age and vulnerability, that is surely a monumental failure.

Returning to the specifics of the Bill, there must be a general tidy-up of the interaction of the overall legislative framework and the powers, and indeed actions, of local authorities in relation to by-laws. I previously stated that on the plain reading of it, it was unlawful to do what the Government had intended to do, that is, to have outdoor dining and simply colonise streets, pavements and so on and say they are now licenced areas. They patently could not be because the law did not provide for it. It hopefully will after the enactment of this legislation. However, we should consider the by-laws. In some case the by-laws enacted by, for example, Dublin City Council, contradict the basic law enacted by the Oireachtas and that is not lawful. Councils cannot enact by-laws where there is extant basic law. As such there is a general need for a tidy-up in this area and it might be something the Minister will reflect and comment on. I am not suggesting it can be done on an emergency basis but we must have clarity so we know what is within the purview of local government and what is within the purview of the Oireachtas. Local authority by-laws are made under section 199 of the Local Government Act 2001 which sets out the conditionality under which those by-laws can be made.

I will comment on a final issue in the few minutes I have, which incidentally is not a great way of making law either, emergency or otherwise. I refer to the bolting-on to what one might say is a non-controversial issue of a separate legislative measure. This is the second time it has happened in the justice area that we have an agreement to take an emergency measure to deal with a specific bespoke problem we all agree must be dealt with speedily and now bolted on is another matter, in this case an increase in the number of High Court judges by five or perhaps six. That is not something that should be bolted on to an emergency measure. Let us deal with that in the ordinary way. If it takes another couple of months then so bet it but let us have the rationale for that spelled out and let us have a debate about that. We are making law and it cannot simply be a matter of saying we have a fast vehicle now and the Houses of the Oireachtas have said this is an emergency measure so let us throw in something additional to it, however meritorious the particular issue. I obviously will not oppose it but if there are other measures to come through by agreement without pre-legislative scrutiny on an emergency basis let it be for the topics that are agreed and not for additional ones.

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