Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I can only assume the Government has learned from what happened in December 2020 when decisions were made which were against public health advice. People may remember that we then had more cases of Covid-19 and more deaths from Covid in January 2021 than we did in all of 2020. I understand where the Government is coming from in this regard. It wants to end restrictions entirely on 22 October, while leaving the legal framework in place until early January 2022 in case anything happens. The Labour Party can understand where the Minister is coming from in this respect.

I advise some caution, however. Previous speakers mentioned the great vaccination rate we have, but we also have a level of vaccination hesitancy which must be tackled. I understand that 13% of young people are expressing vaccination hesitancy, with 8% of those aged between 18 and 24 years saying they have no intention of getting vaccinated, while another 5% state they are unsure. A recent survey showed that total of 13% overall. We must, therefore, move beyond this level of complacency. I am not necessarily saying the Minister is complacent but there may be a sense of complacency in wider society in respect of all of us being behind the vaccination drive and that everything is fine on that level. It is not, however. As late as last Saturday, I met a gentleman who proudly told me he was not vaccinated. While we have not had the same type of mass anti-vaccination protests in Ireland as in other European countries, it is an issue. We should not let up in stating why vaccination is important, particularly with regard to that cohort of young people who are more in touch with misinformation online concerning vaccination and campaigning videos and so on in the social media space. This is not something on which the Government or any of us in politics can take a complacent line.

Reflecting on the Minister's words about how far we have travelled, the last 20 months or so have possibly been the most traumatic period in any of our lives. It is having its effect. It is having a long-term effect, not just in the form of long Covid but also in the mental health strain being experienced by many families. Many Deputies will understand that. I spoke to the principal of a school on Thursday who referred to the number of suicide attempts he is encountering and dealing with in his school community. This is replicated throughout the country, with women in particular trying to kill themselves in recent months because of the level of strain and stress they were feeling. Children have been coming across these situations as well. Problematic, difficult and stressful situations in homes were exacerbated by the impact of Covid-19 and the feeling it was not possible to move outside the family space. People cracked as a result. I totally buy into the idea of having a feel-good factor. We are all going to football matches and restaurants again. We are all having coffee inside, meeting family and friends and hugging granny again. However, some people have cracked under the strain and we are still dealing with that.

Turning to my special area of interest, education, we spoke passionately in this House for months about the need for a catch-up fund. The Government delivered to a degree in that regard, but it is going to take years to repair the profound damage done to children, disadvantaged children in particular, in the education sector. Regarding a sector that has opened, the entertainment, restaurant and hospitality sector, we cannot return to the situation where workers in the sector, who are particularly vulnerable, were open to exploitation and receiving low pay. Statistics from the OECD suggest that 23% of Irish workers pre-Covid were on low pay. There is an epidemic of low pay across the very sector that was shut down for so long. We cannot ask those people now going back into the workforce to return to the vulnerability they felt in their workplaces before Covid struck.

We are minded to support what the Minister is doing based on him having learned the lesson from the catastrophic mistake made last year. The biggest criticism the Opposition can make of the Government is that it does not learn. If the Government has learned from the decisions it made last December and is mindful not to repeat them, the Labour Party is minded to support what it is doing.

I make the point again that we cannot have any complacency when it comes to the vaccination roll-out. That is particularly the case with young people who are being bombarded with messages from bad actors trying to influence them in a particular way. I remind the Minister of the statistics I spoke of earlier in that regard.

If we are talking about hospitality and encouraging people to go out and meet again, we must examine the vulnerability of people working in those sectors. We must look at the impact of long Covid, as the Minister also identified. We must also be mindful, however, that people in Irish society cracked under the strain of the impact of Covid-19. It is completely legitimate for people to put their hands up and say they did not cope during Covid-19 and just did not make it. We must deal with this issue and fund and resource approaches to addressing it. We must reflect on it and build something much better in future. As Members across the House will know, while many people working in communities and on the front line were dealing with the physical health needs of people in respect of Covid or the restrictive measures within schools or the community, many were also dealing with the mental health strain. That is something we must all deal with collectively in future.

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