Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On 29 March, three weeks ago today, I asked the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, about the precise legal situation relating to the restrictions on public worship, either at the level of organising public worship or at the level of leaving one's house to attend such worship. It was a difficult enough session but the Minister said clearly he would get the Department to respond to me in writing to what he described as a very reasonable and important question I had asked about what was legal and what was advisory.In other words, the question concerned whether these restrictions were a matter of public health guidelines only, or whether there would be a penalty. The question was asked against the background of a priest in County Cavan being pursued by the Garda.

It is now three weeks later and I have received no response whatsoever. I also wrote to the Garda Commissioner around that time, expressing my concerns, and I received no response - not even an acknowledgement of receipt. I realise that there may have been issues in respect of what the Garda Commissioner could say.

I wonder what this says about the way the organs and apparatus of State are treating not just the public, but public representatives, who have a job to ask questions on behalf of the public. We have all since discovered that the Government moved quickly and silently to change these restrictions so as to ensure that such public worship, the organisation of or attendance at which, is actually an offence. It did that without telling anybody publicly that it was doing so, mending its hand, it would seem, in the context of a court case that we all know is ongoing.

At a meeting with the representatives of the Irish bishops which was mainly about their concerns about restrictions on public worship, nothing was said, even though the Government knew at that point that it had changed the regulations. Not even as a courtesy, did it say that it had since changed the regulations, to quote Archbishop Eamon Martin, "formally enacting a potential infringement of religious freedom and of constitutional rights."

I wonder at the discourtesy of all of this and democratic accountability. I ask the Leader to take this issue back to the Government. There is something wrong about the way it is going about its business that is not healthy.