Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister may recall that in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan met President Gorbachev of the Soviet Union, he began with a famous line, saying that he would let Gorbachev know why he could not trust him. That is a question that I find myself having to ask the Government at this point as we discuss emergency powers in this House yet again. Throughout this crisis, I have been among many who have said that given the scale of the threat to public health, we had to trust the Government to make decisions in the public interest and to use the draconian powers that we gave it only to the extent necessary. Notwithstanding the good work that has been done, the Minister and Government have taken our trust for granted in many respects and have abused their power.

I draw the Minister's attention to one matter. On 29 March, I asked the him in this House to address the legality or otherwise of the ban on public worship and the points raised by people such as Professor Oran Doyle in Trinity College Dublin about the idea that the regulations as they stood at that point did not actually manage to make the organisation of religious worship illegal, while at the same time the gardaí were imposing fines on at least one priest I was aware of for saying mass publicly. The Minister replied:

I would prefer to get the Senator a written response because he asked a very reasonable and very important question about what is legal and what is advisory. I want to ensure he gets a precise answer to that question. I will ensure that the Department reverts to him with exactly that.

Two months later, I have received no such response in writing or otherwise, despite his express commitment to me as a public representative in this House. How does the Minister expect me or any other Senator to vote for an extension of emergency powers when he has not accounted in even the most basic way for what I claimed was a flagrant breach of the existing powers that he had been given? He went and amended the regulations quickly and somewhat secretly to make sure that he was on stronger legal ground in enforcing the restrictions on worship that then stood. I cannot understand and do not know whether it was a matter of incompetence or insouciance, whether his departmental officials do not care about the commitments that he gives in the Dáil or Seanad or whether he has instructed them not to bother with non-Government inquiries. I just do not know. I was mystified by the discourtesy of it. I do not claim to have any rights greater than other citizen but I would have thought that when a Minister gives a commitment on the floor of the House, it would be followed up on.

The biggest question hanging over the legislation is why an extension to November is needed at all. The Tánaiste said last week that everyone who wants a vaccination will be offered one by the end of June. On that basis, surely we can reasonably expect the entire population to be vaccinated by August? If that expectation is reasonable, why on earth does the Government need to extend these powers until November? What exactly does it foresee that it would be needed for in circumstances where virtually the entire population will have been vaccinated?

I hope that no Government Senators will run for the smelling salts if I mention the game of golf. It has caused some political turmoil in recent times. I am sure the golfers in the House were watching the final day of the US PGA tournament in South Carolina at the weekend. That is a place with a similar population to our own at approximately 5 million. Its Covid statistics have been similar to ours of late as well. On Saturday, it had 362 cases and one death. At the last count, we had 425 cases and four deaths. Some 40% of its population has had at least one dose of the vaccine. We are not far behind that, at 33%. The difference is that they are reopening their state. The mandatory wearing of face masks was suspended in early May. Last Sunday, 10,000 spectators were allowed on to the course to witness Phil Mickelson, who is wonderful at 50, winning. Here in Ireland, no more than 25 can attend a funeral.

We are here talking about extending the Government's draconian powers until November. What is it that justifies the difference in approach? The Government constantly maintains that its caution is based on scientific evidence, but is it? Why are other countries opening up much faster than Ireland and with no apparent significant ill effects, given the rate of vaccinations. The Government has not exactly contributed to a climate of trust, such that we would accept its assurances at this point that there is a rationale for what it is doing at face value.

I draw the Minister's attention to a conversation that I had over the weekend with a hospital consultant, who pointed out that many healthcare workers received the AstraZeneca vaccine. With this vaccine, the time before the second jab is much greater than would be the case with, for example, the Pfizer vaccine, the first jab of which I have received. He put it to me that there is now a situation where many healthcare workers are less protected than many people who might not be operating in the healthcare sector. We heard at the weekend that even after the second jab, the level of protection against the Indian variant would be approximately 60% in the case of AstraZeneca and somewhat higher in the case of some of the other vaccines. If healthcare workers have received the first jab of AstraZeneca, should it not be the case that they are prioritised for a second jab, much sooner than others who have received the AstraZeneca vaccine would get it? It seems to me that there is a risk. The hospital consultant was of a view that some healthcare workers were being put at unnecessary risk because of the delay with getting the second jab.

The Minister may think it unnecessarily pernickety of me to have raised the issue that I did about the lack of clarity around the law on public worship some months back and the fact that he did not respond to my questions. There was a real worry. The police prosecuting citizens on the basis of non-existent laws is the very definition of the abuse of executive power. If something like that happened in Hungary or Poland, Twitter and TikTok would be awash with virtue-signalling condemnations from Ministers. Even the politburos in Beijing and Pyongyang generally have the decency to at least pretend to put formal laws in place before they start prosecuting their own citizens. I am not for a moment comparing this Government with repressive regimes elsewhere but it has become a bit casual about our democratic institutions. It has presumed too much about its right to carry on and to keep saying that what it is doing is in the public interest, and generally disrespecting the very Parliament that has given it powers to do what it does. That is the reason for my interventions.

We want to support the Government but it has shown itself to be less than interested in keeping Parliament fully informed. In fact, there has been a virtual collapse of parliamentary accountability over the past year, a point that was well made by my colleague, Senator McDowell, in a recent article by him that I read. The Taoiseach has made a seemingly endless stream of announcements on live television instead of making them to the Dáil. The Dáil was in session when he made his latest such announcement on the "Six One News". Meanwhile, both of these Houses are barely working half hours, even though many Oireachtas Members and staff have been vaccinated.Senators on the Government side are clearly satisfied with whatever excuse is necessary to protect the Government from scrutiny but that has to end now. It is time that the Minister got serious about his parliamentary responsibility, even while we support him in the measures he has been taking to keep this country safe. I am supporting Senator Keogan's amendments because the Minister has not earned our trust at this point. To echo former US President Reagan’s statement, the Minister gives us reason not to trust that he is on the level when he says he is doing things in the public interest. There does not seem to be a good reason to continue to extend these powers until November in circumstances where most people will have been vaccinated much earlier. There is certainly not a reason to leave in legislation the ability to continue to make regulations extending ministerial powers further. If there are future problems in regard to this pandemic or anything else, the Minister should have to come back to the Dáil and Seanad in the normal way and introduce legislation on which we would vote in the normal way. That is not too much to ask in a parliamentary democracy. It is about time that the Minister reflected on the importance of parliamentary democracy, the citizens’ right to have their Government properly scrutinised and tested by their elected representatives, and those representatives’ right to get answers in a timely fashion when they are asking reasonable questions on their behalf.