Dáil debates

Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages

 

7:12 pm

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

On foot of what Dr. Tony Holohan said this evening, the Minister has lost all credibility. He has given different reasons for introducing this Bill but Dr. Holohan said that he did not advise and was not advising that people under 18 years of age should be let into indoor hospitality. That tells me the Government is only making it up as it goes along. What is sad about this, and I support this amendment on the sunset clause, is that the people who will be affected by this are, first, the young people who could not avail of the vaccine yet. As we have been and are debating here, they are doing everything possible to try to get vaccinated so they will not be left outside. We know what they have suffered. Everybody says that it was the young and very old who suffered the most during the pandemic. I agree with that. Our youngsters behaved very well during the time they were not supposed to do this and that. The Minister should know that if he blackguards youngsters, they will never forget. They will never forget this, which is creating a two-tier society. It is undemocratic and unfair. I cannot stand or vote for that.

The Minister has to realise that there are people who, for medical reasons, could not avail of the vaccine. In the medical advice from their general practitioners, they were advised against taking the vaccine. They would have liked to get it like everybody else but they were advised not to and had to abide by their medical advice. Therefore, they cannot go into indoor hospitality, be it into a pub with their husband or into a restaurant with other family members who are vaccinated. They will have to be left outside. A woman on the telephone to me today was very critical. She asked me if I was going to vote to keep her apart from her family. There have been others as well. At this late stage, I ask the Minister to cop on, do the right thing and open it up for everyone.

It is clear that the Government is just making it up as it goes along. It is like a lifetime ago but the sector was supposed to be open for 5 July. However, a few days before that, the Minister did not realise this and that and said he was keeping it closed a lot longer. Then he formulated this very poor attempt for opening up. Why does he not trust the publicans and the people who run the small restaurants and indoor cafes? They can keep people apart. They can do what they have always done, which is run their businesses well in Killarney and in rural places in Kerry such as Gneeveguilla, Scartaglin, Rathmore, Cromane, Fieries and Currow. I think of all those grand people who have provided this service for years and over the generations, with businesses handed down from one to the other, sometimes going back five generations. The Minister will not trust them to reopen like all the other sectors of society.

Consider the North of Ireland. It is only an hour and a half up the road from here. People in all of Kerry are booking rooms and travelling up to the North for weekends, to such an extent that we could not get rooms for people who are going there to get their cataracts removed in two weeks' time or less. It is absolutely ridiculous. What is the Minister at? Why is he trying to hold a grip on the people? Why does he not just be fair about it, rather than have this two-tier society by letting in some and keeping others out? Other Members wish to speak. This is totally and absolutely ridiculous. It is creating a division in our society by leaving people at home and not letting them have a small bit of a social life for the rest of what is left of the summer. The heart is gone out of the summer already.

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