David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I had not intended to come back in but in light of the Minister's response I have no choice. I want to put a number of points on the record. The Minister's argument that I and Sinn Féin would consciously and deliberately vote against a public health-led response to this pandemic would hold some water if when I was asked privately and publicly if I support public health measures my answer had not always been "Yes". There are many different opinions on Covid. There are people who believe that, at times, we should have gone further and others who believe, as was articulated by some Members of the House this evening, that we have gone too far. I do not recall that I have ever said during my time as health spokesperson for Sinn Féin that I did not support a public health measure that was brought in. There are things I would have done differently. There are certainly things I would have handled better. For example, when the regulation and the change with regard to the requirement for children to wear a face mask was brought in, I said that I would have come at that differently. I would have looked at it as an advisory measure. I certainly would not have sent out instructions through the Department that children should, for example, be excluded from schools. I would have done things a bit differently. At no time during this pandemic have I or Sinn Féin said publicly or privately, inside this Chamber our outside of it, that we were against public health measures. We all get criticism from different sections of society for different positions that we adopt. None of this is done for any political gain because there is no winning in this, in my view. There is no political win for anybody. This is an absolute disaster that has been landed in our laps and everybody is trying to do their absolute best. That is the first point I want to make.

I have never in any of my contributions said that there was a limit on statements on Covid. We have had copious amounts of statements on Covid, which I called for and welcomed. We have also had numerous sessions of statements in regard to the public health response. Even though we were limited and constrained for a long time by the cyberattack in regard to parliamentary questions, I understood that and I never complained about it. There was a great deal of information we were looking for that we could not get, but I never once said that the Minister was not responding to parliamentary questions. I cannot recall the Minister mentioned, but I presume it is accurate. I regularly table parliamentary questions and I get an appropriate response on most occasions. I also never said that the Minister does not take Topical Issues or that Topical Issues on health are not heard. Very often one of the criticisms across the board is that a Minister of State as opposed to the Minister takes Topical Issues, but that is not the issue. The point the Minister was making is that there is a lot of oversight in regard to health generally and Covid. I never said that that was not the case. What I did say was that in regard to crucial decisions that are made in respect of public health advice, which the Government then has to heed and implement, there is no input from the Opposition at almost any level. That is the point that the Minister entirely misses.

I will get to the specifics of the amendments and respond to the some of the points that the Minister made and, as he requested, try to meet him half way. To be honest, we have tried to do that throughout this pandemic. Some of what I will say we already said months ago, but for whatever reason the Minister did not heed it. It is important to be frank and to put that back on the Minister. Essentially, this Bill gives the Minister the power to make regulations. The public health advice is given, it is made public and that causes some difficulties for Government because it can be days before it makes a decision. I have heard many in government talk about that. That is why the Government is now getting some push back from within in regard to the role of NPHET and communications. Essentially, the public health advice comes, the Cabinet sub-committee meets, the Cabinet makes a decision on what elements of that public health advice will be heeded and implemented. Following agreement at Cabinet, the Minister for Health then brings forward regulations. Nobody on the Opposition benches has any input into that process. I ask the Minister to understand this from where I stand. I am then asked to give him and the Government the power to make those regulations and to interpret the public health advice not as I or anybody from the Opposition sees fit but as the Government sees fit. The Minister puts the regulations in place and, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, very often the Government has not got it right. All sorts of miscommunications, mismanagement and bad decision making arises, as it has on many occasions. If I support the Minister being given a blank cheque, I am as culpable as anybody else. I am not prepared to put myself in that position because I do not believe it is right.

I will return to the point I was making in regard to the public health advice. The Minister receives the public health advice. Taking one element of the most recent advice he was given as an example, if I am correct the letter sent to the Minister by NPHET advised that bars should close at 11.30 p.m. but the Government chose not to implement that part of the advice. That was a decision the Minister made. I am not saying it was the right or wrong decision, but that the Government does not always literally follow every piece of advice given by NPHET and that is what ends up in the regulations. The Government sits, as it is entitled to do; the Cabinet sub-committee meets, as it is entitled to do; and the Cabinet meets, as it is entitled to do. The Cabinet has to look at all of the different implications of all of the measures that are brought in, exercise what it sees as its best judgment and make decisions. The regulations flow from that. We do not have any hand, act or part in any of that, as I have said in the past. I welcome that the Minister has said that more briefings will be provided and that the Joint Committee on Health has in more recent times been given more notice in regard to regulations. That is going in the right direction.

The Minister said that if we were to do what is proposed in these amendments we would never get anything else done, which is nonsense and a bit of theatre to back up his argument. The Business Committee structures the business of the House. The Business Committee can act in a responsible way, which, on most occasions, it does. On some occasions, there can be a bit of play acting from both sides. By and large, the Business Committee works and the business of the House is done in an orderly way. If in a particular week there are a number of regulations, they can be grouped and debated in one slot if necessary. The problem is there is zero accountability or debate in regard to regulations, not even in terms of approval. The Minister can agree or disagree as to whether or not there would be a degree of approval needed from the Oireachtas, but there is also no debate afterwards. On the vast majority of occasions, there has been no debate before the regulations have been made, no debate after they have been made, no scrutiny and no briefings. That is the bottom line. If the Minister believes there is a different way to do it and, if he can find a way to ensure that there is some level of democratic oversight, then I would be willing to meet him half way and to support that.

I want to put it back to the Minister. I have heard a great deal of politics being played by people on both sides of this House in regard to Covid. Covid has been one of the biggest challenges that has faced humanity and people on this island and in this State. I have never sought to play politics with it. I have always sought to do the right thing by public health advice, to keep people safe and to encourage them, as I do now, to follow the public health advice, get vaccinated and to get the booster jab.

I am not afraid to say any of this because it is right and appropriate. We have always said that and I have always advocated for appropriate public health responses. However, I also have a responsibility to hold the Minister and the Government to account. I make no apologies whatsoever for saying that the communication skills of the Government have been quite poor. The criticism of the Minister does not always come from me; I have heard a lot of criticism of him from people in the media. Many people have questioned his ability to communicate the public health messages. He needs to look to himself when he talks about people's views around the Covid response. There is much criticism of the Government and some criticism of the Minister in regard to his communication skills.

The greatest failure of the Government, however, is its lack of planning in many areas. This was dealt with by a number of previous speakers, including Deputy Shortall, who talked about antigen testing. Yes, an expert group was set up, but it took an awful long time for the Minister, apparently, to convince others in the Cabinet to accept many of its recommendations. It took far too long for there to be any movement on antigen testing. I will not even go into the whole area of ventilation. Again, an expert group was set up and it seems that many of its recommendations were binned. We have to interpret all of that information in the same way the Minister does. We are looking at all the advice that is given to the Government but we do not get it in the same way the Minister does.

I am making these points because I think democratic oversight is really important. We are talking about emergency powers that are very draconian. We are discussing public health measures that have a real and profound impact on people's lives. I have never said public health measures are not necessary. However, if the Government is free to interpret public health advice in a nuanced way and have a view on how it should be implemented, as it has done, then surely the same right should be afforded to the Opposition. We have never been given that opportunity. The Minister and the Government can be flexible when it comes to public health advice, as they have been, but that flexibility does not seem to be afforded to the Opposition.

I finish on the point on which I started. There have been far too many mistakes by the Government in making regulations and the interpretation of guidelines and regulations. As I said, that has landed the Tánaiste and other members of the Cabinet in trouble in the past. Mistakes were made on other issues as well, which were dealt with by previous speakers. We have had our hands burned far too many times. I am not going to give the Minister a blank cheque to make regulations to do what I have seen done in the past, without any level of democratic oversight. It is not beyond the wit of the Oireachtas to find appropriate ways to ensure that oversight is there, if it is not to be done by way of these amendments. To have no oversight, accountability or transparency is absolutely unacceptable. If the Minister were standing in the position I am in and if Fine Gael Deputies were sitting on these benches and having exactly the same experience I have had, there is not a chance they would give a Sinn Féin Government a blank cheque in the way the Minister expects our party to give one to him and the Government. That is not going to happen.

See this speech in context