Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and join others in condemning the protest outside his family home and, indeed, protests outside the family homes of any politicians of any persuasion. That is to be condemned. There is a time and a place for protest and free speech, and we have a proud record in this country of allowing protest to take place on our streets. We have seen examples of that during the Covid pandemic. It is right and proper that free speech be allowed but not in the form of protests at the private properties of politicians.

I do not listen to "Liveline" but I see on Twitter that one parent asked, "Where does it all end?" on the programme today in the context of her son being forced to wear a mask in primary school. Another caller called in and said, "For me, it ended with a sealed coffin for my dad." That puts things in context and was a powerful contribution from somebody who faced a father's death. I have not heard from principals in my area but I have heard from colleagues that some principals in their areas are saying they will not comply with the regulations and will not ask children to comply. It is not good enough. I agree with Senator Conway that many children in primary school will probably be delighted to wear masks. They see their parents and see everyone else wearing them and they might think, "That looks like great fun." It is a serious health issue, though, so I ask people to comply.

High-efficiency particulate air, HEPA, filters in schools have been talked about for some time. Maybe they are talked about so much that people believe they are the necessary safeguard that can solve all these problems. Are they? What are our counterparts in other countries doing regarding their school ventilation systems? Is it a cost issue or a science issue? I have said before in one of these contributions that we started off very well with signage in our businesses and places people frequent, but I think that has waned somewhat. As a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, I have been told that even compliance with hand sanitisation within these Houses has dropped somewhat, following inspection. I will not name places but I know shops in Galway where you see absolutely nothing in terms of messaging on Covid and nothing of prominence about the location of hand sanitiser dispensers. There are too many empty hand sanitiser dispensers in the country as well.

I welcome the progress that has been made on the booster campaign. We can be very proud as a nation of the high uptake of the vaccine here, comparing it internationally. Hot spots are being looked at in some areas where there may be a high immigrant population that may not have the language skills to know about the vaccine and its availability. Information is being provided in different languages to ensure that people know about that. That is important as well. Also, we are engaging with the COVAX facility in supporting other nations. This is not just a moral issue; it is also in our self-interest that the world gets vaccinated. It is important we accept that. We are trying to stay ahead of Covid via vaccination and while we have a very high rate of vaccination here, Austria and Germany, which are First World or developed world nations or whatever you want to call them, have much lower rates. It is worrying that they have such low rates compared with ours because, as the virus mutates, without sufficient levels of vaccination it will cause further damage throughout the EU and throughout the world and other variants in the future may reach these shores.One could say that it was inevitable the new variant would reach Irish shores, particularly when it had reached the UK. Nobody is particularly surprised that it has arrived and obviously we must limit its spread. The more people that we can vaccinate with the new booster campaign the better.

Looking forward to next year, can we say at this stage whether St. Patrick's Day will be as it used to be? Can we say that the Galway Races will take place next July and August? People are worried about such events taking place. I hope we can get back to some level of normality but we must deal with a new variant at a time of year when people are most at risk of transmission as they will be confined and congregate together. I wish the Minister well in his work.