Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am very strongly of the view that the vaccination programme is the key to getting us out of this grim pandemic and reopening society. In that context, I believe the legislation the Government is pushing through is damaging and divisive. It is a gift to those who are anti-vaccination. Even civil liberties groups, such as the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, have warned that it raises profound questions about discrimination and the ethics of demanding medical or health information from people.

The council wrote to the Taoiseach to the effect that it smacked of mandatory vaccination insofar as the Government is denying entry to people who, for example, have health issues and cannot be vaccinated, have not been vaccinated yet or have not been entirely convinced of the efficacy of vaccines. It is very important to say that the World Health Organization has consistently opposed anything that smacks of mandatory vaccination as threatening to undermine the vaccination programme. I believe it to be very divisive. It causes problems that could undermine the public health effort and, of course, it threatens the health of young workers who will have to work in hospitality when they are unvaccinated.

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