Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is okay, we must accommodate our senior seasoned representatives. In the first instance, like everybody else, I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy English, into the House. He has done a sterling job on late-night TV and radio selling the message of what we are trying to achieve here, which is to flatten the curve and try to live with this awful disease. He has done a remarkably good job in that regard.

I wish to start my remarks by thanking the Irish people for their resilience, patience, determination and sacrifice in helping as a collaborative meitheal effort to try to deal with this pandemic. They have been resilient and made enormous sacrifices. Hundreds and thousands of them at the moment are on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, because they want to do the right thing to save the vulnerable people in our society.

I hear the calls about opening various sectors and I agree with much of it. I do not see the harm in having a clothes shop or shoe shop open.This is the time of year when retail outlets need to sell their product in order to provide themselves with a cushion going into the early part of next year when things will be quiet.

I acknowledge the arguments, discussion and discourse taking place about restaurants and pubs, the prevalence of alcohol and the challenge it seems to present to this disease, not just here but throughout the world. The Government has a job to do and, ultimately, it is its decision. I hope that, as we speak, the people responsible for advising the Government are going through the ifs, buts and maybes. I hope we will return with safe protocols on the opening of restaurants, because the last thing we want at this stage is another spike after Christmas. We are so near to a vaccine being rolled out that I would hate to see all of the sacrifices and hard work of recent months being washed away because of a reopening programme that is too ambitious. That said, we do need to try to give people a normal semblance of Christmas, as much as possible. We know it is not going to be a normal Christmas. However, we want to try to create as much flexibility to facilitate people to, as much as possible, have an enjoyable Christmas. It is difficult and challenging.

What we have seen is the Government and society react in a way that would make one proud. Future generations will look back and see the way in which society, the Government and the leadership of all sectors, religious organisations and others responded to Ireland's call. The people who magnify what is great about our communities and country are the many front-line workers who risk their lives. Many of them got Covid and, sadly, a small number of them have died as a result. The sacrifice they have made to protect citizens is remarkable. We owe it to them and to the connective meitheal that has happened in this country to be cautious but, at the same time, ambitious.

I agree with people who say 2021 will be a great year. It will be a year where we will have a vaccine that will prevent people picking up this disease. At some stage, if time permits this side of Christmas, we should have a debate on the roll-out of the vaccine because it will be the big challenge of quarters 1 and 2 of 2021. I look forward to 2021 with optimism. We have learnt a lot, experienced a lot and suffered a lot. We have lost loved ones and people have got sick in 2020 but we have come together as a nation and in 2021 we will build on the strength of character that we have adopted, developed and nurtured. I think of the words of Seamus Heaney: "If we winter this one out, we can summer anywhere."