Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I know this is a very short debate. There is no doubt that this pandemic has been an absolute watershed in our lives. Deputy O'Dowd mentioned some of the ways in which it has set us back on our heels. This is the time to start to take stock of what we have learned from this. One of the positives is the extraordinary way in which our export companies have helped us through this. We have had the highest ever creation of jobs by Enterprise Ireland and the Industrial Development Authority. It is our robust economic management that has helped us to protect people during this difficult period, but we have to now recognise that this pandemic has also exposed serious imbalances in the global economy that we have to knuckle down to. This pandemic gives us an opportunity to take a fresh look at them.

There is no doubt that the world has changed, with the emergence of extraordinarily strong data companies mine data have and have scant enough regulation of how that impacts on our lives. We have seen precarious working emerge from some of these models. We have seen the extraordinary frailty of our planet exposed by some of the practices that have developed and we have seen divisions and inequalities in access to skill and opportunities. We now have to knuckle down to see how we address these issues. We have been very successful in the global market, but if companies are to continue to serve the public interest and protect the gains they have delivered to consumers - health is one of those areas - we need appropriate regulation to match the pro-enterprise policy that has been so important. We need to see new principles underlie the success of our enterprises. The wave of new success will come to those who apply the lessons of how to avoid environmental damage, while at the same time delivering high quality standards, how they protect consumers, how they value and develop their workforce and how they ensure that any algorithms being used to access marketplaces have sound principles underpinning them. They have to protect families and offer the flexibility that allows families to thrive.

We need to start looking at a new social contract, where the new risks that are in people's lives are addressed. That will be the agenda we have to address in the coming months, but we do so starting from a good base in that we have a robust economy. It gives us the chance to achieve leadership roles in these important areas. I hope that will be the mark of how we learn from this pandemic, not just in the health area but in the wider area of economic progress.

See this speech in context