Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I want to make a few general points about opening up the economy. I am not one of these sceptics who believes in deriding the measures taken by the Government but I am sceptical about blanket measures which are non-discriminating in the effects they have and are not based on proper science. I echo the remarks made by Deputy Eoghan Murphy recently in a debate on the response of the country to the Covid-19 pandemic. His words were well chosen and his points were well made.

There are far wider implications from Covid-19 to be taken into consideration than simply mortality. Happily, it appears that medical practice has improved to the point that the health services have kept mortality to a low level. There is more to public health than the Covid-19 pandemic. There are serious mental health issues, for example. There are serious side effects for cancer screening programmes, etc., which have suffered immense damage as a result of the lockdowns. Some of it may be inevitable damage but immense damage has been done due to the non-availability of many medical services. I mention the withdrawal of so many services for dependent persons, adult and children, with mental disability. The suspension of facilities and communal services for them has had a very significant effect. Public health has to be seen in the round, not just in the narrow path of responding to Covid-19.

When it comes to the economic effects of the measures the Government puts in place to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, it seems to me that the precautionary principle should apply. This principle does not just apply to science, health or risk to health. It also applies to damage to jobs. I do not know whether we are really alert in this country to the issues which were discussed yesterday in Westminster by Rishi Sunak, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. Huge costs are piling up all the time. The indebtedness we are running up in this country will have to be paid for by somebody and there will be taxation implications. It is in everybody's political interests to say nothing about this because Opposition parties in the Dáil take the view that they do not want to talk about raising taxation and the Government does not want to do it either. There is a background of enormous economic consequence and damage to be dealt with at some stage in the future and we just have to face up to that fact.

I refer to opening up the economy and our society more generally. Society is more than an economy. Huge damage has been done to the fabric of small and medium-sized enterprises in Ireland, not just in the hospitality sector but across the board. If the Government is going to issue blanket edicts, the presumption should be against restriction, unless it can be proved that it will be effective. If the Government is going to say what kind of stores should be closed and open, it should not be in a position to stay that all stores should close. It should work out where there is a significant risk in a particular shop or business opening up. This is something that is providing a highly specialised service to other people. If the Government is going to say that all outdoor sports are to be restricted, it has to go through every single sport carefully and ask if it is a risk. The precautionary principle requires much more care to be taken than we have seen so far in going through every single restriction we impose to see if it is really scientifically justified.

Perhaps this House, but certainly Dáil Éireann and this House together, should reinstate the Special Committee on Covid-19 Response that Deputy McNamara was chairing. It did valuable business and it is an illusion to think that its activities can be fairly spread around the other committees, which do not have the week-on-week capacity to follow this pandemic and the Government's response to it. I ask the Government to reconsider what I consider was the ill-considered disbandment of Deputy McNamara's Special Committee on Covid-19 Response and to consider putting in place proper Oireachtas scrutiny of the pandemic and the public's response to it.