Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is welcome, but I oppose the Bill. The time has long passed since the Government could seek to get the benefit of the doubt over its Covid-19 measures. Ministers have consistently shown such rank contempt for both Houses that any request for new powers ought to be flatly denied. As usual it will be nodded through by Government Senators as was done by Government Deputies before us.

During the Dáil debate on the Bill, I was struck by the sheer number of points and questions put by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Deputies which the Minister directly and deliberately ignored. I have had direct experience of this. As he knows, on the floor of this House, I asked him detailed questions about the unconstitutional ban on public Mass. That question was dodged on the promise of giving a written response. It took two months to issue and when it arrived it was a cop-out answer. That causes major concerns to me and others about parliamentary accountability these days.

There is a fundamental injustice underpinning this Bill. The notion of intergenerational solidarity, so extensively promoted by the Government when it suits, has been abandoned. A commitment made and restated by the Tánaiste as recently as four weeks ago that there would be no discrimination between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated has been cynically abandoned. All it took was a wave of the magic wand by NPHET for a set of apocalyptic projections to be accepted by the Cabinet virtually without question.

As the Minister ignored questions posed by Government backbenchers in the Dáil, I do not have great confidence that I will get answers here, but I will ask them anyway. Why are we seeking to divide younger people from older people who are vaccinated when the Government explicitly said at all times in the last 12 months that it would not do that? What is the target date for the introduction of antigen and PCR testing as an alternative to the vaccination passport for entry to pubs and indoor dining? Under this Bill private businesses would be privy to personal medical information. How will this information be held? Does it not put business owners in an appalling position regarding the legal obligations over retention, handling and destruction of information?

Throughout the summer of 2020, restaurants and pubs which serve food were open and thriving although there were restrictions on social distancing, contact tracing, advanced bookings and so on. If the Minister had told anyone back then that 12 months later 4 million vaccine doses would have been administered with 55% of the population fully vaccinated but that those pubs and restaurants would be closed for indoor hospitality until 19 July and that people would have fewer freedoms for summer 2021 than they had in summer 2020, they would have called for the men and women in white coats - it is an equal opportunity profession. However, the fact that we are here is an absolute indictment of the Irish political and policy-making system.

NPHET's worst-case scenario, dropped in its usual bombshell fashion a couple of weeks ago, was that without continuing restrictions 2,170 could die in Ireland by the end of September due to the Delta variant. As recently as yesterday, it claimed that even with the restrictions in place, 1,800 could be dead in that time. One of the problems we have had since last year is that NPHET's apocalyptic predictions have never been tested because it is in the glorious position of being able to predict anything at all in the full knowledge that the Government will implement whatever restrictions it seeks. The fact that its worst-case scenario did not ultimately happen is then taken as evidence, ipso facto, that the restrictions sought were justified and had the desired effect. The story of Chicken Little and the sky falling comes to mind.

For the first time, on this occasion, we will have a direct ability to gauge whether NPHET is correct because of the near total relaxation of restrictions planned for the United Kingdom next week. If NPHET's doomsday predictions of the Delta variant are accurate, we should see bodies literally pile up in the UK over the next ten weeks. If more than 2,000 would die in Ireland with no restrictions, going by NPHET's maths we should expect to see at least 32,000 deaths in the UK by the end of September with 900 dead in Northern Ireland. Does anybody believe there is the slightest chance that will happen here? The proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Either 32,000 more deaths will occur in the UK before the end of September or NPHET's modelling of the impact of the Delta variant is, at best, entirely wrong.

Some people would say it is an attempt to scare the public. Will there be any accountability for NPHET and the Government if these projections are shown to be wildly inaccurate? Will the media and the political system simply shrug shoulders in an outbreak of collective amnesia and move on to the next set of projections?