Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. His is not a job anyone would envy because it is very difficult in the midst of a pandemic. We all wish him well in doing that job. This is about public health in our country and it is the reason this legislation has been brought before the House.

I listened with interest to the clamour about the need for mandatory quarantine and the hysteria about it not being in place until now. We will be the first in Europe to introduce mandatory quarantine of the nature proposed in the Bill. We are doing it and other European countries may well follow suit. I remember last October when the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, stood in the Dáil and advised people not to travel home for Christmas. He was described as mean-spirited and heartless, although at that time the advice was to not travel for non-essential reasons and that travel should only happen for essential reasons.This has been the case for a number of months. The advice is clear but this does not mean that people adhered to the advice, clearly they did not. Some of the people who accused the Tánaiste before Christmas of being heartless and mean-spirited when he was advising people to not travel home for Christmas, are the very people who are now lecturing about mandatory quarantining and pointing the finger at the Government as to why this has not happened already and why it did not happen six or eight months ago. We are in a pandemic and we are learning from the pandemic. I suggest that our country has handled the pandemic far better than a lot of other countries. Sadly, 4,300 of our citizens have died with Covid-19. We mourned their deaths and remember each and every one of them. That number would have been a lot worse had we not taken the actions when we took then. The public buy-in, especially to the very first lockdown this time last year, resulted in the saving of lives. The public buy-in since then, to a large extent, has saved lives. Prior to Christmas, however, we found ourselves dealing with new strains. I agree with the Minister. It is time to remove the nationality label from those strains and just call them what they are, which is new strains and new variants of Covid-19. This will continue to evolve but we have hope in the vaccine. In the month of April alone, 1 million people will be vaccinated against Covid-19, with a similar figure in May and a similar figure in June. When there is a significant roll-out of the vaccine to a large number of citizens, then we can take some hope that the days going forward will be brighter and that we will have overcome the worst and harshest of this pandemic.

This legislation is necessary. It is needed to deal with the international travel side of things but it is only one element. We will beat this disease only by implementing all elements of public health advice, coupled with the vaccine. Mandatory quarantining on its own is not going to eliminate or reduce Covid-19 within this country. That will be achieved by each and every Member and each and every citizen of the State doing what we are supposed to do and following the basic, simple public health advice that we are tired of listening to but which is so important to repeat.

The thuggish behaviour that took place in Dublin city centre last Saturday was a blight on our capital city and on our nation. I have no doubt that the full rigours of the law will be used against these people. I would send a clear message to them that this Parliament and the State will not entertain any further such activity going forward, either on St. Patrick's Day, in Cork, in Limerick, in Clare or anywhere else. This is too serious and it will be dealt with.