Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank an Teachta Cullinane for sharing his time with me this morning. I pay tribute to those workers who have been on the front line right throughout this pandemic. While we were all busy having a series of L’Oréal moments in the convention centre, people were putting themselves in harm's way. They were going into Covid wards. They were working in retail. They were making sure that we were fed and kept safe. There are people who have worked right throughout this pandemic, including the staff here in the Houses, who deserve to be recognised and deserve our respect.

We should not lose sight of the fact that many of the measures that were recommended had to be implemented on the back of the fact that we had to protect the health service. We had to protect the health service because we went into this pandemic with a health service that was effectively on its knees because it was understaffed and under-resourced. We know how that happened; it did not happen recently, it was decades long in the making. That is the reason many of the measures had to be taken. The legacy of this pandemic must be a wake-up call for the people who sit on the Government benches. We cannot allow the health service to be exposed in that way ever again.

I want to touch on two areas in the few minutes available to me, namely, aviation and hospitality. Both of those sectors are anxiously looking at antigen testing.

I refer to the minutes of the 4 June meeting of the HSE antigen testing working group, which state:

A recent modelling exercise by HIQA the Health Information and Quality Authority of Ireland, has suggested that with respect to workers in ... processing plants, [which are high-risk work environments,] ADT-based testing of supervised self-collected nasal samples once or twice a week with RT-PCR confirmation of positive results may offer benefit in terms of a potentially increased detection of cases, reduction in infectious person-days circulating, and a reduced overall cost relative to the current practice of monthly RT-PCR testing.

It seems, therefore, that the use of antigen testing was modelled in meat factories. Like an Teachta Cullinane, I thought we would have questions. My question is, why was it not modelled for aviation or for hospitality when there was time to do that and when case numbers were low? This time last year case numbers were in the single digits. That was not done and now we are in a situation where we are playing catch-up, which is regrettable. As the Minister will know, there are 140,000 jobs hanging in the balance in the aviation sector. Public health and safety must come first and we absolutely realise and respect that. The vaccine passports are due to go live on 19 July and while we all hope that works, there are questions. As people in the airline industry are used to dealing with inoculations and with them being a requirement for travel, they are ready to go. They are asking whether the Minister is ready to go and whether this will go live on 19 July. The hope is it will but as yet, we have not seen any evidence. We do not know if it has been trialled and we do not know the result of that. Has it been trialled as yet? Are we up to speed? Can the Minister confirm it will go live on 19 July?

Turning to hospitality, as the Minister is aware, it is a low-paid and largely non-unionised sector. I will point to the correlation there, which is that if a person wants to improve his or her pay, he or she should join a trade union, get active in that trade union and demand decent terms and conditions. Notwithstanding that the conditions are poor and the pay not great, despite what some in government would claim, people in the hospitality sector are really anxious to get to work. They want to get off the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, and back into work. I know there has been engagement with representatives from industry and I am asking that the workers' voice also be heard at that table. It is really important. These 180,000 workers want a safe place in which to go back to work.

In the few seconds remaining to me, I have a few questions. As I said, I had hoped to have a back and forth but there are some issues arising with dance classes. If they are in a private facility, it appears they can go ahead but where a person is renting a facility from the council it appears he or she is being told they cannot go ahead. The Minister is nodding, which is good. There is some confusion there.

On the sacraments of communion and confirmation, I am not a religious person but for some people it is really important and is not about the party afterwards. Has the Minister looked at the possibility of having some ceremonies outdoors and will he be discussing that with church leaders?

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