Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Instinct is appropriate here and it was an appropriate word for the Deputy to conclude his question on. What instinct of his is motivating him? During the many lockdowns we had to go through when our country was going through waves of Covid, at what point would he have lightened the public health measures? At what point would he have made the decision, when there were hundreds of people in our hospitals and we had community transmission rates in the thousands on some days, to reverse the public health measures that were in place at that point? He was not involved in that decision nor, indeed, should he have been. He is not a member of Government. It is a responsibility I have. During that period, we put public health measures in place that were very demanding. It is also the case that due to the measures and the vaccination programme put in place by the Government, and the economic support plans we implemented, we were able to reduce the number of people who could have died. Every life that has been lost, every person's health that has been affected and every family that has grieved is a grievance and a loss too many. Our measures were successful in helping many people escape the spread of this deadly disease.

We are now seeing a recovery taking place within our economy, a reduction in the number of people unemployed, and increase in the amount of money being spent in our domestic economy that up to a year ago would have looked unlikely. Of course, I acknowledge the difficulty and harm caused by decisions we had to make, but I put the case to the House that in many cases those measures were successful in saving lives and preventing further ill health.

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