Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this opportunity. I am disappointed with the legislation, which is being rushed through. No less than anyone else, I wanted the hospitality sector to reopen fully and for people to be spread out. Clearly, this Bill is discrimination of the highest order. There was no consultation. Maybe some few words were had with the heads of the vintners' organisation and so on, but there was no discussion with the rank and file. Who will monitor this? Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy Catherine Martin, stated that GPs would give certificates to people who had had the virus, but doctors have denied that.

This is an infringement on civil liberties. We should treat everyone equally, yet we will now discriminate. This is shocking treatment of our young people. Ireland's 18-year-olds are now trying their best to get vaccinated so that they will not be left on the outside. This is compelling them and it is wrong. Backbenchers have been complaining about this legislation in the Chamber all evening, yet they will vote for it later tonight like they do with everything else. Who are they codding?

Why is antigen testing not being considered? As I have asked previously, is a member of NPHET gainfully involved in other test kits? It is surprising that the Government did not get the Department to detail this. What is going on? Why do the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the rest of the Government not trust the hospitality sector, including publicans and restaurateurs? All around Kerry, they are the grandest of people who have provided the best of service down the years and abided by every law. How does the Government believe that this can be monitored? Why is it so rushed? Why did the Government not give people a chance to suss it out? People who are 18 years of age will be denied and kept outside after all that has been done to them for the past year and a half. They have been isolated and their lives have been impinged upon.

I have people ringing me who cannot get the vaccine. They cannot take it on their GPs' advice. One woman told me yesterday that she, her husband and her son and daughter always used to go to their local pub and asked me whether she would now be kept out because, on her doctor's advice, she could not get the vaccine. She has a blood clotting problem. Others told me that, because they were on blood thinners or the like, they could not get the vaccine either. I know a man who finished up in Cork after his first vaccine dose. He was rushed there because he had a clot in his leg. He is not going to get the second dose, but I will tell the House that that man deserves to get a couple of pints more than anyone else because he works terribly hard to keep his business going. To deny him the right to have a pint is very wrong.

The Government does not know what it is at at all. For many reasons, I look forward to the day when we will not have the coronavirus. We will not have the Government dictating to us as it has been. It does not trust good, honest, hard-working publicans and restaurant operators. It is asking them to put people outside to eat. It does not understand. People get much better weather up here in Dublin than we do down in Kerry. It is raining down there every day when I leave it, and when I go back down, it is raining again. The sun is shining outside here. It is fine for the people of Dublin.

See this speech in context