David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want hospitality opened. I want it opened safely, as quickly as possible and for everybody. There is something rotten at the core of the message we got from the Tánaiste's contribution. There is something very unfair about it given that over the past year, the Opposition in this State and in this House has been very supportive of public health measures. I would say to the Government that they have been the envy of many countries in Europe where by and large, the political system has bought into the need to keep people safe and the need to put in place restrictions where they are necessary to fight a virus that is a common enemy of all of us.

A pattern has emerged during the course of this pandemic. This pattern is the failure of the Government to plan. We then see what happens. The Government fails to plan and it fails to put in place any contingency planning. The Taoiseach took to a podium two weeks ago when people, including the hospitality sector, citizens and the Opposition, were expecting to see a plan. On that day we heard from the Taoiseach that they do not have a plan but to give them a couple of weeks to cobble and scramble something together and they would come back. That is what the Government does. Then it came back with a plan that I genuinely believe is not fair, is impractical, is unworkable and is discriminatory. It is rushed through the Dáil. The health committee has been told there would be no pre-legislative scrutiny even though there was a vote on it. That was rammed through by the Government. There was very little time for any amendments. I suspect that not a single amendment posed by the Opposition will be accepted by the Government because it has decided it is just going to push this through. There will certainly be no engagement of any substance with the Opposition at all. Then in the most arrogant way, it is presented by the Tánaiste as if it were the only game in town or the only show in town and better than any of the alternatives. This is without even asking the Opposition what the alternatives are and without being interested in what the alternatives are. That is the pattern we got from this Government; it is our way or no way.

There are alternatives. The matter is not as straightforward as the Tánaiste and the Minister presented it.

The Tánaiste set out a challenge by asking what is the alternative. We have been pointing out an alternative for a number of weeks. It is to look at all of the ingredients that would make up a plan to allow for the safe reopening of indoor hospitality for everybody. I remind the Tánaiste, the Taoiseach, who is not here, and the Minister that they stated that they had very real reservations. In fact, the Taoiseach was quite clear that EU certificates or passports would not be used for domestic purposes. He stated that it was not going to happen when the matter was working its way through the European Parliament but here we are with such a plan, which is going to discriminate and leave many people outside the door. Rather than have a plan that includes everybody, we will have a plan that excludes many.

What are the ingredients of a solution? I attended a briefing given by NPHET. I fully support the work it does. I also appreciate that it gives public health advice and it gives it very well. It does its job very diligently. I have never once undermined the work of people who are doing their best. People can have disagreements with various aspects of what they might recommend at times, but they have a job to do. My quarrel is never with the public health experts that give advice. The range of different scenarios NPHET presented was based on information that we still did not have regarding the transmissibility of the virus. We also know that the changes to the vaccine roll-out were not built into the modelling. The 300,000 doses of the two vaccines that will be made available to young people, which I welcome, were not built into the modelling. The fact that all of the over-60s will be fully vaccinated by 19 July, which I welcome, was not built in. That would be a start. It reduces some but not all of the risk.

The Tánaiste talked about air filtration and ventilation systems. We are told that will be part of the solution. That reduces risk. It does not reduce all risk but it reduces some risk. That must be built into the modelling and we need to find out what is the level of reduction of risk. We also know that testing is something that reduces risk. Antigen testing does not reduce risk as much as PCR testing, but testing is not being used and it is not on the table as an option for people who are unvaccinated to be able to avail of the same opportunities as those who are vaccinated, which is exactly what we are doing when it comes to international travel. One can get a PCR test, jump on an aeroplane and go into a restaurant in Spain, Portugal, Italy, England or wherever. That is fine but a young person does not have the same opportunity to do it when it comes to indoor dining. Those are the contradictions.

Another ingredient would be looking at limiting numbers of people at tables and all of the social distancing guidelines that we had in place last summer and that worked very well. It was towards the latter end of the year and at Christmas when the British variant arrived that we had real difficulties. For me, all of those measures in their own right reduce risk and should have formed part of a reopening for everybody. I am deeply uncomfortable. I say this in a sincere way. The Taoiseach or the Tánaiste might think that I and my party are playing politics with this, but I cannot support any plan or legislation that I see as discriminatory and unfair. I simply cannot do it. It is not in me to do that. For this reason, I cannot support this legislation.

The Tánaiste spoke about public health advice. The public health advice was that people under the age of 18 should not be allowed inside the door. That was never recommended. That was a change made by the Government. I do not say it was the wrong decision, but one cannot, on the one hand, take anàla carteapproach to the public health advice and then, on the other hand, say to the Opposition that it is not the way to do it. The public health advice was what it was. We are all looking to put in place a plan that would allow for hospitality to reopen for everybody, but the Government made a decision to let the under-18s in, so now we have contradictions. One cannot be confirmed or have one's first holy communion if one is under 18, but one can go into a restaurant or a pub. If one has a family of four, two of whom are under 18 and two over 18 and they are on a staycation, the 19- and 20-year-olds can stay outside. Let us hope it will not be raining when they are outside, or they can stay in the hotel or go wherever they want while the rest of the family can go into a premises and have dinner, a drink, a cup of coffee or whatever might be the case inside. The 19- or 20-year-olds outside the door are most likely the people who, once their staycations are over, will be serving the drinks and food in the hospitality sector. People can see all these contradictions.

The Tánaiste can take to his feet and blame Sinn Féin, which many Deputies are doing. This is not about the Government versus the Opposition. This is not about Sinn Féin. Almost all of the Opposition is against this Bill. I am not sure what the Labour Party's position is, but I assume it will oppose the legislation. The Social Democrats are opposing it. Most of the Independents are opposing it. Aontú is opposing it. They are all opposing it because there is almost universal opposition to this from within the Opposition. This is not about any one political party and it is not about the Government versus the Opposition. This is about what is right and what is wrong. This is about what will work and what will not work.

The Tánaiste says that this will be light touch and we will not have compliance officers going in and checking every table. I am not necessarily looking for that either, but if we are going to bring forward legislation and put in rules but it is not going to be policed, the obvious question is why are we doing it in the first place. This is going to be so light touch as to be ridiculous, ineffective, and impractical and it simply will not work. That is what is going to happen here. That is the madness of all of this.

We need to put in place all of the other ingredients I spoke about that are not in place to reduce the risk, not come up with something that will not work and will discriminate and where a blind eye will be turned to some of it anyway. The Government will not have put in place the ventilation and air filtration systems and antigen testing will not be up and running. We will not be accelerating the vaccine roll-out for young people, and even when we do, we are not going to build it into our modelling assumptions. The Tánaiste must get real. This is a plan that is impractical and unworkable. Regardless of the way he wants to present the matter, it is not a case of it being his way or the highway. There is an alternative, which I have outlined, and he has not chosen to accept it. Instead, he has gone for a two-tier reopening that is deeply problematic.

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