Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The message that we are all in this together has to mean something. Now we have a situation whereby someone who could stop me entering a premises, if I am not vaccinated, could themselves be unvaccinated. The person who might serve me could be unvaccinated and probably all the staff. The three wise men in charge of this country, who are most unwise on this issue, do not see a problem with this. They do not see a problem in sending out a message to go out, drink and consume and we will look after businesses. They have utterly failed to learn the lesson that we want to transform the way we do things. Due to Covid and climate change, we must have transformative action. We cannot go back to the way we were.

If the Minister has any influence at all, this should be a limited measure. She should talk to local authorities, Galway City Council, in particular, remind them of their obligations under the Barcelona Declaration and their commitment to provide access to everyone. Then she should stop this idiocy of divide and conquer. Let us work together. I say this as someone who supported a zero Covid approach. I believed we could have achieved that and we should have worked from that but we did not. We allowed more people to die in the third wave of Covid this year because of the complete lack of preparation by the Government in anticipation of this. If this is the advice NPHET gave, which I have not had the opportunity to see, it is unfit for purpose.

See this speech in context