Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I listened to the debate in my office before I in came to speak. I am reminded of the old phrase that you govern in prose and campaign in poetry. It is easy for some Members to come in and make sincere speeches. It is fair to say none of us wants to be here today to support the continuation of the legislation. Senator Black made the most pertinent point of the afternoon when she said we may well be here again in February. We may well be, but our debate needs to be put in context. We have seen a change in the information from NPHET and NIAC and a slowness in transmitting that information to us. I am happy to support this legislation because it is the right thing to do. I respect the rights of all people whose viewpoint differs from mine.

I am struck by the figures and the 14-day incident rate. The debate we have seen in our country about vaccination in other parts of the world, and the lack of vaccination in parts of the world, leads me to ask a basic question: where would we be today if we did not have the vaccination programme? In asking that, individually and collectively we all have a responsibility in terms of measures we can take. That includes the hospitality sector, us, individually, the sporting organisations and those who are involved in running public transport and in our education settings and so on.

The Lancetstudy published last week shows that the low risk of infection by those who are vaccinated means that vaccinations work. I am concerned about the situation in our schools. I spoke about it during today's Order of Business. I know what we have said and what NPHET has said, but for some reason that I cannot comprehend, we have stopped contact tracing in our schools. I genuinely believe, as somebody who taught in a school and is familiar with the workings of the contact tracing in our education system prior to the mid-term break, that we should reverse that decision and go back to contact tracing in schools. It is about security. I heard Colm Henry this morning speaking about how the school setting is not the place that the virus spreads in, and that it is more the home setting. He may well be right but schools are still a reservoir of infection. We have seen it with the substitution issue where teachers and pupils are absent. That is causing concern to all involved in education.

Senator Keogan mentioned bed capacity. We have increased bed capacity in our ICUs and in our hospitals but we need to see a fundamental reappraisal of bed capacity in the future, in Sláintecare. I had a Commencement matter for tomorrow, which was not selected, on the elective hospital for Cork but I will resubmit it for next week. As part of our living with Covid-19 and emerging from Covid-19, we need a debate on usage of our public hospitals. We are back to pre-pandemic levels in emergency departments. In fact, in some cases we are gone beyond it, which is a source of concern also.

The measures, for which the Minister has asked permission to continue, are ones we should support. I understand there are differences of opinion on that, and I accept them. We do not want to see civil liberties taken away. We do not want to go back to another lockdown nor to the 5 km limit again. We must put public health at the heart of what we do.

Reluctantly, I support the motion but I hope we will have a firm debate again around the issue of our health provision.