Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I plan on this being my only contribution this evening because I have no amendments tabled. There are some good pro-scrutiny and pro-transparency amendments that we will be supporting and there are other amendments that we will not.

I hope that the Minister can answer my question during the course of this evening. Regardless of how one feels about this legislation or its sister legislation, we can all agree that, legislatively speaking, this is not the best way to tackle Covid in the months and, dare I say it, years ahead. According to the WHO, Covid will be with us in some fashion until 2023, so we will have to come up with a better legislative approach than this where we come back every couple of months to consider extending these legislative provisions. It is becoming repetitive and the debate is getting more base and poorer, which is not a good reflection of our politics and is not how we should be tackling Covid. We are treating each wave as if it is our last and we are not planning for Covid being here into the future.

We are all worried that Covid will throw us another curveball and send us down another unwanted turn. We have to be prepared for that. The majority of us in opposition accept that this will happen and that there will be pain and difficult decisions. However, we have learned from Covid over the past 20 months.

We have learned about different testing measures, contact tracing, mask-wearing, sanitising hands, social distancing, air filtration, CO2 monitors and all the rest. We have practical tools in our armoury, which is where the Opposition broadly wants to focus its energy in terms of implementing what we believe will help. We all know that there is no silver bullet, but I do not think it is helping anybody to have legislation coming on a frequent basis in respect of short-term measures that do not take into account where we are with Covid, where we are going to go with it and how long it is going to be with us.

We will support the Bill. I will not give an ultimatum and say this is the last time we will support such a Bill, but as 2022 dawns I hope that as well as the practical measures we all want to see improved, rolled out and invested in, we will also see a more long-term legislative approach that means we can focus our time in here on other pieces of legislation on other aspects of healthcare and challenges in society. This is not a long-term way to deal with the situation. It is short-term legislation that is being rolled over in an emergency fashion. At some stage, Covid will still be with us and it cannot be an emergency any more. It is just going to be part of how we live our lives and the health service will have to adapt to it. I hope that something will come from the Minister either this evening or in the next couple of days to indicate that this will be the last time we will be debating these sister pieces of legislation, not because we believe Covid is going to go away, but because there is a better, more sophisticated long-term approach that takes into account the reality of Covid and not the hope that this wave is going to be our last.

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