Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am a fast talker. Few Bills like this one have come before the Oireachtas in our time here in the past ten years. It is a difficult Bill to support because it is dividing society and excluding. That is obvious and accepted by everybody. It is not something anybody or any Government would do lightly. In some parts, it is even going against NPHET's advice, which is not something we have done since before Christmas and we do not do that lightly. I appreciate the dilemma the Government is facing between securing the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people who are going back to work in the next couple of weeks and an industry that supports Ireland and on which we rely so heavily. I will be supporting this Bill but it is qualified support because we must all see, with a sense of urgency we have not seen to date, an implementation plan on the introduction of antigen test screening in hospitality, transport and all of the aspects of life we have not seen or people have not been able to access for the past 16 months.

We need to see it in and around the same time as we expect our restaurants and pubs to open on 26 July. I have to be honest, we have seen so much flapping around with regard to antigen tests for months. We have had illogical resistance. We have had insults to the Irish people's intelligence in that we could not possibly use them and all the while, the HSE was using antigen tests to make sure its own staff were returning to work safely. We have enjoyed social cohesion in this country, in the main, over the course of this pandemic but we are really testing people's patience with this law. If we do not provide the mechanism to allow the people who are being excluded by this law to partake in Irish society, we are at risk of losing that social cohesion and solidarity we have enjoyed for the past 16 months.

Including the children of vaccinated adults in this law does allow families to make decisions for themselves and that is probably to be welcomed, but the inconsistency of the messaging between Government and our Chief Medical Officer, CMO, is absolutely jarring. The Government is saying it is okay for kids to go for their burger and chips indoors with their mammies and daddies but we also have the Government and the CMO saying it is not advisable and "I would not do it if I was you". At the same time, we are telling our kids they cannot have indoor summer camps which we all know they need for their mental health and well-being but in six weeks' time we will tell all parents it is safe for our children to go back to school. Which is it? There has to be consistency in our messaging and I am sorry to say that has not been employed for the past couple of months.

This is emergency legislation which is why we are taking all Stages of it together. It is emergency legislation to allow people to eat and drink inside. The irony here is we still have women, up and down the length and breadth of this country, who are giving birth to their children on their own and, in some cases, losing their babies on their own. That says an awful lot about our priorities.