Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

In particular when the Government is not giving clear answers. What is consistent in our approach to this is that when we were campaigning for elimination as a strategy, prior to there being mass vaccination, the whole point was to reduce the likelihood of long protracted periods of very harsh restrictions and rolling lockdowns that went on for long periods precisely because we saw it as a mechanism to reopen society. That is what everybody wants to know, how we reopen society but do it safely in a way that we can cope with Covid-19 and protect lives and health. What I do not understand in that regard, for example, is the reluctance and unwillingness to have a serious discussion about air quality, ventilation and so on, but the Government is very quick to give itself certain quite draconian powers without a clear rationale of where it is heading. I would like to hear from the Minister where he thinks it is all heading in terms of how we are going to get back to some level of normality and how these powers are designed to achieve that.

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