Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is welcome. It is always good to see him and the optimism that he brings.

I am happy and anxious at the same time. We stand at the end of a lockdown period that has been, largely, a great success, whether we agree with it or not. It would appear that we have had a second wave of infection, experienced a peak and are managing the case numbers and caseloads that are coming through. All the trends are downward and that is positive and great.

I am fearful about opening up on 1 December, although I hope we do because many people have made appointments for that date, some urgently. I am fearful that the cycle of positive cases will start going upwards from a fortnight to three weeks after the reopening and that we will end up with an emergency meeting around 16 or 18 December reflecting a rise in cases because people have been out shopping, our hospitality establishments have reopened and people have resumed visiting them. People feel that, after such a long time of sacrifice, they deserve their Christmas and to meet their families. All of that is true. However, 2,033 people are dead. They may not have died were it not for this serious virus that is afflicting our country and the world.

I wish that we were back in the situation we were in during the summer. I wish we were in a place where we were looking at an opening up of Ireland and that we had a plan for what to do next Monday and three weeks later. That was a great success during the summer. The opening up of the economy and life was clear and decisive. People had hope and a date for which to aim. I booked a holiday in Cork for the date on which we could travel. I was gone once we could go. We were able to pull the original plan back and open even earlier. Christmas, and the here and now, make that a difficult thing for our Government to do. I do not envy the sub-group or the Cabinet who will try to make a decision tomorrow. In an ideal world, we would open everything up, including the hospitality sector, and I would like to be in a position to say that. I see hardship in the group of people who are around me. There are 30 or 40 people who have had a grand time during Covid-19 and have sailed through it. They have worked from home. It has been challenging because of childcare and they are worried about the mental health of people, which is serious in itself, but there are others who have lost their businesses, have had to organise moratoriums on their mortgages and have actually lost loved ones through Covid and otherwise. Those people face into a lonely Christmas without members of their family and need to get together.

There are difficulties around Christmas. There is an impetus to pile pressure and urgency on the Government, especially around the hospitality sector. I do not blame those in the sector. This is the time of year when a lot would be sold across retail and hospitality. It is the one opportunity to store up profits for the lean times of January and February. We are in a difficult place. The only thing I can say is that if the Government is prepared to open things up and, as a part of that narrative, we say that we may have another lockdown in January, we are giving licence to an attitude where people go for it because they think we are going to be locked down again in January anyway. I fear for a relaxation of the adherence to regulations that has brought us to the place in which we are today of having lower numbers of infections. We have lower numbers because people and businesses have made incredible sacrifices. We, as a nation, have complied with the regulations for the most part. We have made good choices.

As much as I want to stand here and give the Minister of State a list of all the things that I believe are urgent, I find it difficult to do so. I worry about small businesses that took out personal loans to advance themselves. I worry about extracurricular activities and the effect their cancellation is having. I have a child who has not had a play date since last March. Moments in people's lives are passing that can never be got back. There are rites of passage that can never be reclaimed. Things are passing. Every day is a huge development for the young. The old are sitting and waiting, fearful that death awaits them if they go out to the shop, church or wherever.

If we are going to open churches, we need to think about every type of church, denomination and religion. It is not just the Catholic and Protestant churches that have fine big buildings. There are newer churches. Many of the international communities that live among us have evangelical churches that meet in community centres. We are going to have to start discriminating the minute we make a decision. We must make a decision around square footage, or something like that.

I do not envy the Minister of State. I urge him to make the communication and vision strong and clear. We must craft a vision for the new year when we can open up because we will have a vaccine and all of these things. We must urge people to adhere to the regulations for Christmas because we want to have a happy new year.