Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I will share time with Deputy Gino Kenny if he arrives on time. He is in Leinster House.

I will start by making one positive comment about the Rural Independent Group. It has been consistent on Covid-19. It has been consistently wrong, but consistent nonetheless. At every point of the Covid crisis, it has been in favour of opening up and letting Covid rip and has consistently downplayed the dangers the pandemic presents.

What the Rural Independent Group wanted was implemented in November last year when the Government announced the reopening of indoor hospitality and dining in December. The Government bears responsibility for that. There are plenty of Government backbenchers who continue to hold exactly the same position as the Rural Independent Group. Over 1,000 people died in January as a result of that decision. That is the truth. Over 1,000 people died in February as a result of that decision. That is also the truth. There is no accountability for any of that. We are all supposed to say that we should move on. The fact is that all the Opposition parties, apart from the socialist left, went along with it. We are to move on and forget about it. We will repeat the same mistakes.

In fairness, Deputies in the Rural Independent Group are consistent. They want to open up again now. The motion calls for the reopening of indoor and outdoor hospitality right now. It presents this call as the alternative to the discriminatory measure the Government is proposing. In fact, it is not the alternative. I am against the discrimination the Government is proposing. It is a bad idea. It is especially a bad idea to rush, in the final week of the Dáil, a measure that has such implications for health surveillance, data protection, etc. I am against it. However, the alternative is not to say that we should allow everyone who is vaccinated or unvaccinated inside hospitality premises. It is to recognise the public health facts and the reality that it is not safe to reopen indoor dining and hospitality at this point.

For a couple of months now, the media has been chock-a-block with stories on this and we have been hearing non-stop from the lobbyists on behalf of the pubs and restaurants. We have not heard much in the way of nurses talking about the impact of Covid. We have not heard anything from the workers who will not be vaccinated but who are expected to go in to work in unsafe settings. I have all the sympathy in the world for the owners of pubs and restaurants that have been faced with a horrific situation and have been closed for over a year in many cases. The truth is that it is simply not safe for the workers or the wider public. If we do what the pub and restaurant sector is asking now, the impact would see hundreds, and possibly thousands, more unnecessary deaths. At the moment, we are on one of the two central projections of NPHET. If we were to reopen and let Covid rip, which is what this motion suggests, we would probably have 1,500 or more deaths and we would see more of the dreadful impact of long Covid, etc.

The alternative is to follow the public health advice and put public health rather than private profit first. We should then support properly small businesses that need it. We should not cut the pandemic unemployment payment. We should support workers who cannot be employed now as their industry is shut down because that is necessary for public health reasons to allow us to get vaccination done before we can reopen safely. The alternative that is being pushed - the Government is moving halfway in this direction and it may well lead to the same place - will lead to a fourth wave and another lockdown. That would be devastating for those businesses, workers and wider society.

There was an alternative. We were the only ones calling for it. We argued that we need to introduce mandatory hotel quarantine for travellers from England, Scotland and Wales to slow down the spread of the Delta variant. If the Government had acted when we called for that measure seven weeks ago, we would be in a different position. Of course, the Rural Independent Group opposed that proposal at the time.

I make the point about the consistency of the Rural Independent Group in order to make a point about the incredible inconsistency of Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin speakers today have said they will support this motion to reopen indoor and outdoor hospitality right now. They have said they followed public health advice all the way along but they supported the reopening of hospitality at Christmas, which had as a consequence thousands of unnecessary deaths. Now, Sinn Féin is supporting a motion calling for reopening hospitality to unvaccinated people. This will also cause the deaths of significant numbers of people. That is a real shame.

The main responsibility for the situation we are in - the fact that we have had the longest lockdown in Europe and more than 8,000 deaths - lies with the Government. However, if our main Opposition party had taken a consistent principled position on Covid, I believe we could be in a different position. If it had consistently advocated for an alternative zero-Covid policy and had not gone along with every twist and turn of the Government in following the lobbyists, we might have been in a different situation. Before the vote on this motion tonight, I call on Sinn Féin Deputies to read the motion they are signing up to. A number of Sinn Féin speakers have said they will vote for it. The motion calls for the reopening of indoor and outdoor hospitality right now for everyone. While it does away with the discrimination, it does so in a way that will result in significant numbers of deaths. Is that the Sinn Féin position now?

I draw attention to the final point on the motion which states "accept that the pursuit of a de factozero-Covid strategy, aimed at the elimination of all Covid-19 variants, would result in permanent and irreversible damage to the economic and social fabric of the State and the integrity of the democratic process". It is a consistent position by the Rural Independent Group; we cannot criticise its members for that. They have consistently advocated for a Swedish, let-it-rip model even though it has failed. However, that is fine; that is their position. However, only a few months ago Sinn Féin Members were telling us they were in favour of a zero Covid strategy and now they plan to vote in favour of a motion which condemns a zero Covid strategy. Which is it? If they had adopted a consistent position along the line, we could be in a very different position today.

I will make the point in defence of a zero Covid strategy. Obviously, it will not happen now and the route to reopening will happen through vaccination. However, let us consider the difference in death rates between Ireland and New Zealand or Australia. In New Zealand with roughly the same population, fewer than 30 people have died. More than 8,000 people have died in Ireland. We have had the longest lockdown in all of Europe. New Zealand has been open with not much impact on the economy for the vast majority of time. Australia, with a population of 25 million, has had fewer than 1,000 deaths. We have had eight times that amount with a population that is the fraction of Australia's.

There was an alternative that was not followed or implemented because the Government allowed itself to be driven by the interests of private lobbying and short-term thinking at each successive step of the way, as opposed to planning in a way that would have put public health workers' rights first and would have meant the earliest possible reopening for everybody involved.

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