Seanad debates

Friday, 16 July 2021

Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021: Second and Subsequent Stages

 

9:30 am

Photo of Vincent P MartinVincent P Martin (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Due to the fluid and ever-changing nature of the challenge, it is impossible to have a perfect response. I welcome constructive criticism. I welcome and will defend the right of people to offer constructive criticism but I would ask people to beware of populism. Populism concocts enemies, misrepresents social problems for its own benefit and proposes slogans as solutions. Its effect is to divide communities. Like everywhere else in the world, in Ireland, we must be on our guard against populism. Populism seeks out legitimate social problems - not to cure them but to use them to undermine the very fabric of the society. In that way, populism is wholly destructive. It sets out a them-and-us narrative and imagines conspiracy where there is none. It alleges fraud and wickedness where none exists. At times, populism can be full of raw negative emotion, and indeed it can be anti-intellectual and have an adverse impact on society, especially the vulnerable, so I urge people to temper their remarks in a constructive way. This country must deal with the pandemic, but if nakedly challenged as an opportunistic breeding ground for populism, it must be countered with positive energy aimed at solutions.

Despite the success of the vaccination programme, on which I commend the Minister, there is still a prevailing sense of insecurity or uncertainty affecting many of us at a subconscious level. We are internalising worries about variants and new working dynamics, and even being physically close to people again is causing anxiety. We took so many basic things for granted. We are hoping that, some time soon, mentally challenging restrictions will be about to ease and fade into the distance. We are clinging to this hope. Hope is fostered in conversations where the potential for a sense of the restoration of normality is now being actively discussed. We all want the spontaneity of life to return. Any positive or cautiously optimistic conversation that infers or countenances a return to more normality will lift the heart of the nation and ease all our minds. However, in truth, we are treading on thin ice. In these unprecedented times, we must try to advance relaxations and get rid of restrictions in a safe way to make sure they work.

We are social creatures. Our hospitality sector is on its knees and we have lost some people in that sector due to the mental pressures caused by financial stresses. I know this at first hand as a founder of New Beginning at the time of the previous crash. We had the great and the good. The big, the old and the bold came before me in my office and were reduced to tears because they could not earn a livelihood. They were in bits. They crumbled before me or the courts in a far colder environment. Apart from the many livelihoods in the hospitality sector, I understand there are up to 180,000 jobs on the line, many of them in rural Ireland. We cannot sit idly by and watch the hospitality sector collapse and blow an enormous hole in our economy.

Another significant stakeholder we often might forget about is the customer - Mr. or Miss citizen of Ireland. Tragically, we lost some of those customers whose reliance on that vital community interaction sustained them. They clung on to that natural social interaction. We are in new territory as we predict, test and measure. That is how it has always been. There is nothing definite about the future. We have to take risks, and I emphasise, as the Government has emphasised, these include risks in compliance with public health standards. These are calculated risks and measured risks. When facing a period of unprecedented challenge, calculated risks can and should be taken or else we stay in the darkness unaware of the light that is not too far away if we only reach out.A fear of fear leaves people helpless when in crisis and measured risk-taking builds confidence. We cannot hide in the darkness but need to reach out to light. We must ensure growing hospitalisation numbers do not further pressurise already burdened front-line staff and we must protect lives but we must also protect livelihoods. It is a double balancing act. These livelihoods are crucial to people.

We must not ignore this when faced with the moral dilemma. It is possible to strike a balance when it is a temporary or short-term balance. It is a proportionate response. Nobody has the ideal solutions but we must try to do our best. We must take measured risks and hold on to hope, which sustains us during times of upheaval and uncertainty.

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