David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin has tabled a number of amendments to the Bill, as the Minister may have seen. When previous incarnations of the Bill were brought before the Dáil we supported them and we will also support this Bill. At the same time, it is important that the Minister listens to what the Opposition is saying on the need for engagement and the need for proper oversight, accountability and transparency when all of these decisions are being made. I welcome the fact that at least we are dealing with primary legislation and we can set out all of our views and tease out the implications of the legislation being proposed, as opposed to tabling motions on emergency powers, which has happened in the past, whereby we cannot amend or have proper debate and scrutiny. Regulations are made without any regard to the Opposition.

I will repeat something I have said a number of times in the context of where we are now. Nobody wants additional public health measures. Nobody wants additional restrictions. Each and every restriction introduced is extreme in its own right. While we need to put in place public health measures for travel, we always have to be careful and balance out the measures we introduce and the impact they have on citizens. We all know that because of the profile of the disease now and the potential threat of the new variant and possibly other variants, we may have to look at mandatory hotel quarantine at some point in the future. If that is the public health advice, and if it needs to be implemented, measures will have to be introduced very quickly by the Government.

Every time regulations have been introduced I can say without exception the first I have learned of them is when they have been put on the website. Often, the media contacts us waiting for our response to what those regulations mean. We can be sitting in front of laptops refreshing the HSE website waiting for the regulations. There is no email, no heads-up or no sense of what time the regulations might be published. This was raised in the health committee recently. It simply is not good enough. I do not believe that if the Minister was standing where I am, he would see it as an acceptable way of working with the Opposition on introducing very difficult measures. There are very strong feelings, as the Minister knows, on any and every public health measure. It is very important that as much as we can, we have maximum transparency, maximum accountability, proper debate and proper scrutiny. I have to say, once again, as I stand here that this has not happened. We have had very few briefings for the Opposition from the Minister, the Chief Medical Officer or the Department of Health. We have had very few briefings at the Oireachtas health committee. Many members of the health committee feel that in recent times we have been treated with contempt with regard to legislation being brought forward and permission being sought for the waiving of pre-legislative scrutiny. On occasions I gave consent for it and on other occasions I did not, depending on the Bill. I supported waiving pre-legislative scrutiny on this Bill because of the urgency. Overall, what I see as a lack of respect to the Opposition is not good enough. I say this at this late hour because we could be looking at more restrictions in future and nobody wants them. We will certainly be looking for proper engagement on public health measures on travel. We all have to evaluate properly any decision made.

The reason I support the Bill is because of the threat the new variant may potentially cause. I have been at pains to point out, as have others in recent days and weeks since we first found out about the variant, that we have to listen to the science and the medical experts. We have to wait and get the expert opinion as to precisely how difficult and challenging the variant will be. There is little point in speculating. We are learning more about it every day and over the coming weeks we will learn even more. It is also appropriate that we respond as quickly as possible. In responding, what we need to do is not move ahead of public health advice or fall behind public health advice when it comes to international travel. We had many debates on international travel in the past where my party was very strong in supporting mandatory hotel quarantine where it was necessary. Equally, every time it was introduced I always said it is an extreme measure that should only be introduced and used in exceptional circumstances when absolutely necessary and for only as long as is necessary. The same logic should apply here. I have some questions on the Bill and I spoke to the Minister privately about some concerns I have about testing requirements pre-departure. I will get to these in a few moments and the Minister may have some answers to them. It is important that we put this legislation in a wider context with regard to where we are with Covid.

The response from the Government generally with regard to many of the tools that the State has at its disposal, and that the Minister for Health has to deploy, has not been adequate. Mistakes have been made. I mentioned the lack of consultation certainly with the Opposition and colleagues in the Dáil and Seanad. I fully stand over this. There has also being an appalling lack of consultation with stakeholders in many areas. The most recent example of this has been the decision to ask children aged between nine and 11 to wear face masks. It is the public health advice and I accept it. The difficulty is that this was a decision made very quickly with no consultation whatsoever with teachers, teaching unions or the National Parents Council. It was simply brought in. As usual, there were mixed messages in the early stages when it was first introduced. It was landed on the laps of school principals and teachers. The direction given to schools was seen as an overly confrontational approach, which I believe is unnecessary. We need to be very careful when dealing with public health measures, particularly when they impact children, that we do not take a confrontational approach and that we take a commonsense approach. In my view, this is what should have been taken in this instance.

When there is no engagement and when something like this is landed on schools, teachers and parents at the eleventh hour without any consultation or engagement, it causes concern and presents challenges. The Minister needs to re-examine the way this particular piece of advice was given and re-examine exactly what instruction is being given to schools.

He needs also to ensure there are sufficient flexibilities within that advice to acknowledge this will be very difficult for schools, parents and teachers.

I return to what I have said over the past while. We have talked for some time about personal responsibility and about how the vast majority will do the right thing most of the time. I think they will do the right thing on all these issues, but we have to ensure we do not take a confrontational approach that could create unnecessary tensions and difficulties for everybody. That needs to be examined by the Government. I do not want to see any situation, and I am sure the Minister does not either, where a child could be refused entry to school. That would be an appalling issue that would create significant problems for the Minister and his Government and for the child and schools generally. We need to be careful about how we approach that issue.

I raise also the issue of antigen testing, one solution being considered for international travel. If someone has been fully vaccinated and is returning to this country, a lab-based antigen test will suffice. I accept and welcome that. It shows we are finally using antigen testing, albeit not in all the settings in which I would want it to be used. Even so, I was flabbergasted when I heard the Minister's interview earlier in the week in which he said that because the market had adjusted the price of antigen tests and some retailers had reduced their price, that was it and the State was off the hook. He indicated that the State, and he as Minister for Health, had no responsibility to consider costs and subsidising the roll-out and use of antigen tests.

I have often accused Ministers and Governments of being out of touch, and statements like that prove me right. The advice from the Government is that if someone in a family of five or six contracts Covid and tests positive, all the members of that family have to restrict their movements and, possibly, go on to self-isolate. They will be asked to take three antigen tests over a five-day period. Let us consider the cost of that for a family of five of six, and that may happen a couple of times within a household, as has happened. That is a lot of money for a lot of families who do not have it. It fits in with the wider issues relating to the cost of living and all the other issues families face.

When we talk about rolling out antigen testing, we have to look at the success of the vaccine roll-out and the general success of PCR testing, despite the great pressures on the system currently. Again, I am seeking to have the capacity of those centres in some areas beefed up, given the wait times. The success of the booster jab, PCR testing and the vaccine roll-out is, in part, down to the fact they were free and cost was not an impediment. There was very good engagement and very high levels of uptake of people using the walk-in testing centres and being vaccinated. We should take the same approach to antigen testing. I cannot understand why the Minister and his Government did not simply do the right thing, make antigen tests freely available and hardwire antigen testing as an additional tool into our overall response to combat Covid.

I reiterate the advice I have been given, and that I have been giving the public, such that they should not use antigen testing when they are symptomatic. If they are symptomatic, they should restrict their movements, get a PCR test and await the outcome of that test. If they are asymptomatic and working in high-risk environment, or have put themselves in such an environment or are in one, they should use antigen testing regularly. That is the advice I have been given and it is the advice I am giving others. It is how I believe antigen testing should be used, and the tests should be made freely available. That is the type of response people want to see. They want strong leadership and to see we are deploying all the resources available to us as a State as best we can.

We all accept there is a level of fatigue and tiredness. We are almost two years into this pandemic and great sacrifices have been made by the public. There has been a great cost, socially and economically, to society in general. People's mental health has been deeply impacted. Every time we have to move backwards and reconsider public health measures, it increases that tension and level of fatigue people feel. It is really important in that context that the Government get it right. If it does not and if people see that a clumsy approach is being taken by the Minister for Health, the Cabinet or the Government, whereby we do not get right antigen testing or the roll-out of the booster jab, or if we fail in respect of ventilation in schools, that is something parents cannot get their heads around. We were told by the Government for weeks and months that schools were the safest environment and that we could stop contact tracing in schools because they were so safe. Schools are not being resourced to install HEPA filters or any type of ventilation. Schools were asked to open the windows, when it was 2°C or 3°C, with children freezing in classrooms, yet that was acceptable. We did not provide those resources and then, almost overnight, children and schools became the problem. They now have to wear masks, they cannot exercise and all the mixed messages we have seen in respect fo that advice have been ridiculous.

Finally, the requirement for pre-departure PCR testing is an issue I raised with the Minister yesterday. In his closing remarks, he might clarify this. If someone has been fully vaccinated, he or she will be asked to carry out a lab-based antigen test and that is a requirement to get back into the country. If someone is unvaccinated, he or she will have to get a PCR test. The difficulty with somebody who may be unvaccinated and currently outside the country is that if he or she had Covid one, two or three months ago, it still might turn up in a lab-based antigen test. If he or she does not have a negative PCR test, will he or she be denied entry back into the State even if he or she can produce proof of recovery, which people were able to do in the past? It is unclear what somebody in those circumstances should do. What is the timeframe between when a person has had Covid and has recovered, and how long will it take it to work itself out of the system whereby it will not come up in a PCR test? I am not sure whether the Minister has that information but if he does, he might share it with the House.

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