Elisha McCallion (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I begin by repeating what I said in the Seanad yesterday and, indeed, many of my colleagues have been saying over the past number of days, that is, that Sinn Féin in opposition wants to achieve the same thing as the Government in relation to this pandemic. We want to see the virus brought under control in the interest of saving lives and we want to be constructive in opposition. However, as we have been saying over the past number of days, the level of co-operation between the Government and the Opposition over the past three or four months has been in decline in regards to co-operation to deal with this pandemic. At the start of the pandemic, there was very good co-operation. We are not seeing enough of that at present. We are certainly not being briefed enough and communication is lacking.

We are all tired of Covid. People are tired of Covid. People are tired of the media speculation, tired of renewed restrictions and certainly tired of the Government and the chaos seen in government in many circumstances.Our country is trying to cope with a virus and, unfortunately, we are doing so by imposing some of the tightest restrictions. In the here and now, we must protect public health against the virus and those restrictions are necessary. However, I cannot help but feel we could have done a lot more in the past few months. We are where we are because we need to protect the health system from being overwhelmed but this is a broken health system, which can barely cope with a normal winter flu surge, never mind a global pandemic. The Government has missed opportunities to make sustainable improvements in the health system through its winter plan and in its budget. We are in level 5 restrictions because of a number of failures from the start. The Government has had ample opportunity to get contact tracing right and build it up to capacity. This Government, the Minister for Health, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach have ignored calls and warnings from Senators, Deputies and the general public to pay attention to the evident problems. The Government consistently denies there are issues with testing and testing.

The Bill gives extreme powers to the Minister for Health to make regulations in future. These include the power to set fines and determine the types of regulations that are subject to fines and the types of breaches that have to go to court. This type of legislation needs proper scrutiny and there is no excuse for not having it. The amendments put forward by Sinn Féin seek to address this issue, although it is unlikely, as a number of Senators have said, that we will be able to debate any of the almost 50 amendments.

Sinn Féin has also tabled amendments to remove the threat of imprisonment. I listened to Senator Byrne's point on repeat offenders but that is not what the Bill addresses. This legislation provides that prison sentence may be imposed on first-time, second-time and other offenders. We have put forward amendments to address this issue because custodial sentences are not appropriate in this instance. I do not accept the decision to rule the amendment out of order. I appreciate it was not the Acting Chairman who made the ruling. Amendment No. 37 proposed to introduce measures to bring about regulations for businesses such as meat factories, many of which disregard regulations and sometimes put workers' health and public health in danger. It is regrettable that it was ruled out of order.

In March when this nightmare began, we saw widespread solidarity throughout the country. We must try to regain that solidarity and find ways to rebuild confidence among the community. Unfortunately, this Bill in its current form does not do that. Most people follow guidelines as best they can and abide by the rules to protect each other and the most vulnerable. The sensible approach for us all must be, in the first instance, to encourage, as the Garda has done, those people who are not compliant to understand the guidelines and comply for the greater good. If people continue to refuse to obey the rules, there may be circumstances in which some level of enforcement is required. Sinn Féin shares the concerns articulated by Garda representatives and various bodies that the overly punitive approach proposed by the Government in this Bill risks alienating people even further. It could undermine efforts to regain the solidarity needed to achieve high levels of compliance. The Government's approach to this legislation could make the situation worse. High numbers of fixed penalty notices and threats of imprisonment for breaches of the guidance are not proportionate. We have proposed amendments seeking to address many of these issues. It is extremely regrettable that we will not be able to vote, I assume, on any of them.

I reiterate that we all support the public health messages and interventions which will allow us to try to get the virus back under control. However, these restrictions are hard and people need reassurance. People need to know there will be solid plan when we emerge from the next few weeks of restrictions. Without the amendments Sinn Féin and others have put forward, it will be impossible for us to support this Bill. I hope the Minister will give consideration to the many amendments before him to make this Bill in some way appropriate.