Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Covid is obviously a real illness and we needed to be careful regarding the management of that illness. However, Ireland took a role which was an extreme outlier role compared with every other European country. No other European country's restrictions were as severe or as long as those introduced by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

In financial terms, for example, our annual spending in 2020 increased by 20%. In Denmark, it increased by 5% while in France, it increased by 8%. The European average increase in spending during 2020 was less than 10%. However, due to the overextended and over-severe restrictions, our spending amount was a radical outlier. No other country took the route we took nor did it cost any other country the same in financial terms.

On the cost of this, we are edging towards a national debt of €280 billion. We will have a deficit of €14 billion next year, €7 billion in the year after that and €7 billion in the following year. We are talking about a paltry sum of less than €1 billion with regard the fund from the European Union.

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