Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Government has recommended that people work from home. That has plenty of environmental benefits as well as public health benefits, on top of rejuvenating towns and cities across our country. However, the rural broadband scheme is hopelessly behind and that is a disincentive for people as it makes it impossible for them to work from home. The Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, has been promising a Bill that would give ComReg powers to make existing broadband providers provide the services they are contracted to, but we have not seen it. The Minister is right. His Government has spent billions of euro on the Covid response but we have seen nothing on the actual responses that could make people live more safely. There has been nothing on antigen testing. No money has been spent on that even though the EU is providing tests and there are 1.5 million of them sitting in storage. There has been nothing with regard to ventilation in our schools, which I called for, along with many other Deputies, before the summer holidays. We have seen nothing on statutory sick pay, which would allow people who are sick to stay at home and we have seen nothing with regard to increased capacity in our healthcare system. When is the Government going to stop giving people advice and start facilitating people to live more safely?

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