Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I know the Minister of State is standing in for the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, but I do not think there is a sense of urgency in this reply, to be honest. Our population has gone through 18 months of severe restrictions and we are still maintaining those restrictions because we are obviously concerned about our families and the people around us who we love. Even the WHO’s Mike Ryan said today there is a huge danger from our neighbours, the UK, unless we start talking about this now and unless we start looking at what we have to do. I am not talking about mandatory hotel quarantine for the next ten months but until our vaccination programme is robust enough to be able to protect our population. We should at least give that break to our population and that security that at least we are making an attempt.

On the question in regard to the North and people flying through Belfast, we should be talking to our counterparts in the North and if not having checks on the Border, then, perhaps, a kilometre or two beyond the Border, checking people flying in and coming down from Belfast. We have to give ourselves all the chances we can to stop this disease coming in again, on top of the Delta presence that we know is going to increase quickly. We are trying to deal with that but we have more infection coming in from the UK and also possible variants. That is the crucial thing that could break the chain of the vaccination programme unless we take this seriously.

I urge the Minister of State to go back to the Minister, Deputy Donnelly, the HSE and NPHET to ask them to seriously discuss this, so we have something in place for 19 July and are not responding by bringing in something in two weeks time, when it is too late. It is very important that we protect our population.

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