Seanad debates

Friday, 7 May 2021

European Digital Green Certificate: Statements

 

10:30 am

Photo of Fiona O'LoughlinFiona O'Loughlin (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I am aware that, since his appointment, he has been dealing with the myriad issues we have faced owing to Covid and EU business matters. I thank him for that. I wish him well with the remainder of his term. Maybe we took for granted the right to travel that we had before Covid and the freedom we had to make decisions on what we wanted to do with our leisure time and our time to connect with family, and also on business. We never had the time to realise how precious this freedom was so we must now do our best to ensure a safe return to travel. That is really important for business and leisure and to give families an opportunity to reconnect. Almost all of us have families who live in parts of the world, including elsewhere in Europe, and we have not had a chance to see any of them over the past 14 months.

It has to be noted that the vaccination uptake has been really high. That one third of all adults have had at least their first vaccination is really important, and that is why the roll-out of the European digital green certificate is particularly important at this time. As Members of the Legislature, we have a part to play regarding the European digital green certificate. There has to be proportionality in measures concerning public health and keeping people safe, with an effort being made not to interfere with people's fundamental freedoms. We have all received correspondence on that because there is a balance to be struck between the protection of fundamental rights and legal implications. The European digital green certificate that is being proposed, which the Minister of State has outlined, strikes a balance. It does not just seek proof of vaccination from an individual who wishes to travel. That it also has regard to a negative test result or recovery from Covid-19 is important because there are those who do not wish to be vaccinated, for one reason or another. There is no way that we should be trying to force those individuals although we should try to encourage them to get vaccinated. We realise we are in a very privileged position when we see other countries' circumstances around the world, particularly in India. I noted US President Joe Biden's very fine statement on intellectual property rights and vaccines. I hope we will add our voice to it.

Ireland is getting ready to open internally for business and societal reasons but we need to send a very strong statement to Europe and the rest of the world that we are also getting ready to open for business with the world.We would have had our busiest week last week in Kildare with the Punchestown races. There would not have been one hotel or restaurant to be had within a 40- to 50-mile radius. Many would have come from overseas. Sadly, we are at the lack of that. We want to ensure those in tourism and business that we have everything in place to enable that to happen. Everything the Minister of State has said in terms of having the framework and software ready absolutely fits into that agenda.

It is important to stress that these digital green certificates are not vaccination passports and we do not want people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons to be discriminated against. EU countries are developing national software and we are absolutely depending on that to happen.

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