Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I sympathise completely with the remarks made by other Senators regarding what we are being told in the media about what the Government intends to do on the basis of the advice from NPHET. I have no confidence in NPHET for the very simple reason that the difference in treatment of meat plants and restaurants between it and the HSE is dramatic and inexplicable. I have no confidence in the HSE because for the three years from 2016 to 2019, report after report recommended increasing the level of ICU provision in hospitals but practically nothing was done. When this situation arose again in March, we heard at the Covid committee that sanction had been given for an increase in ICU capacity. That is the politics and the administration of paralysis.

Closing down restaurants on this day in this capital will condemn vast swathes of vulnerable, underpaid people to go home to their bedsits, or wherever they live, and spend weeks alone without proper wages. That is what will happen. What is being proposed has not been scientifically justified and is wrong.It flies in the face of the strategy announced two weeks ago by the Government that it was going to open these places again. It flies in the face of science. It is wrong.

This House should debate these regulations. We have not debated them. We stand up and speak for two minutes on them. They are misguided. NPHET does not deserve our respect. The HSE does not deserve our respect. They are implementing policies which are cruel, wasteful and extremely damaging to our economy and extremely damaging to public health in terms of cancer, psychiatry, psychology and well-being across the board. It is time we stood up and demanded that these regulations be properly debated in this House.