Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are disappointed and frustrated with how the motion has been proposed. The way the Government has been handling wide-reaching emergency legislation in recent weeks, via motions and guillotined debates, shows contempt for the Opposition. No Opposition briefing has been provided in advance of the motion to inform us of the up-to-date epidemiological circumstances in countries on the designated state list, yet we are expected to vote in favour of it, which would again extend the broad powers contained in the Health (Amendment) Act 2021 to people arriving from 61 countries throughout the world. These are significant matters but that is not reflected in this one-line motion and this is not the way to do business.

The introduction of mandatory hotel quarantine during the height of the crisis here was the correct decision. It has left us in a stronger position to move ahead with the reopening of travel from next week and, as the Minister of State outlined, it played an important role at a time when we were in the early stages of the vaccine roll-out and even before that - with the risk of the Alpha, Beta and Gamma variants - when it contributed significantly to protecting the vaccine roll-out. We support mandatory hotel quarantine going forward and believe there is a place for it in certain circumstances during the ongoing pandemic, as many countries are going to continue to face considerable challenges, whether that is rampant spread or new variants. As I said, however, these powers are very far reaching, and expecting us to rubber-stamp a motion such as this, with little to no debate, is simply not appropriate.

It seems many of the issues with the current system have not yet been addressed. People who have been fully vaccinated with WHO-approved, but not EMA-approved, vaccines are still required to go into mandatory hotel quarantine and this is a source of frustration for people. I ask the Minister of State to continue with efforts to resolve this, presumably by working with European counterparts and colleagues. People who have to travel for medical issues that do not fall under the current exemptions are still not provided for, resulting in numerous problems and confusion in this area. The lack of clarity over how countries are designated or removed from the list remains vague, something on which we have called for increased transparency.

As our office, like others I am sure, has been inundated with complaints about issues with the system, I welcome that a survey on user satisfaction is to be commenced among people who are or have been in mandatory hotel quarantine. It would be appropriate and useful if there were a dedicated point of contact for representatives because many queries arise from time to time. Moreover, the information provided online about the rules and exemptions needs to be improved. That will be an increasingly important feature as we move past 19 July. I accept that the Department of Foreign Affairs web page and gov.ie have information, while the Re-open EU app is useful and provides information. It is important that the information be widely available for people because it will be a source of frustration.

As I said, we would have liked the opportunity to contribute more significantly to this as a policy. For the Government to take as a given that we would support every measure at the outset and rubber-stamp them at every opportunity when it brings them to the House is not good enough. We need a proper debate on these issues. We could have had that, with opportunity for input from the Opposition, but we have been curtailed, as we have been this morning. That is a source of frustration for all of us in the Opposition.

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