Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The first question is whether mandatory quarantine works. Mandatory quarantine was introduced at a time when people were talking about zero Covid and when there was a strong belief, at the start of the whole process, that it was possible to put a fence around the country and protect it from incoming viruses and variants. I do not think anybody would agree that zero Covid could possibly work at this point in time. I also do not think anybody would agree that mandatory quarantine actually works, because the minute a variant is identified in any part of the world, you can bet your bottom dollar it is likely to be here already and likely to be in circulation in other parts of the world anyway. Someone might make an argument that mandatory quarantine should be used to stem the flow and so on but the Government is looking in the wrong places. It is leaning on the people through restrictions and radically reducing people's rights, and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has indicated that there is a significant human rights aspect to these types of detentions, yet the obvious stuff with regard to protection of life is not being focused upon. Most of the deaths that have happened in this State since the start of the illness have happened in a hospital or nursing home. Most of the people who have died caught Covid in a nursing home or hospital. They are the locations of most damage, pain and suffering and yet they are the areas that get the least debate and discussion in this Chamber. I cannot remember the last time we had a focus in the national media, or politically, on those two sectors.

We are now focusing on children in schools, when no child under the age of 14 has died since the start of the pandemic. Some 55 people under the age of 44 in the whole State have died with Covid in the last two years. That is fewer than have died as a result of car accidents. It is important and shocking that these deaths have happened and our hearts go out to the families who have lost their loved ones in these circumstances. All of those cases are tragic situations, and we as a society need to make sure we do our best to protect each life that exists, but my worry is that the Government is involved in window-dressing to a certain extent, in the same way that masks for schoolchildren is window-dressing. Increasing hospital capacity, bringing ICU beds up from 300 to 560 and increasing hospital beds from 14,000 to 22,000 are the actual actions that would make a significant difference in the saving and protection of life, and in making sure society can function.

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