Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be sure to tell the people who have mentioned it to me.

We need to talk about the long term. We keep coming in here to discuss these emergency measures but according to the WHO, Covid will be with us until 2023. I hope we can come up with a better legislative approach than repeatedly coming into the House and having the same arguments over an hour, when we all recognise what we need to do. The debate in the public is becoming more base. It is becoming poorer. People are engaging at a much more base level. That is a challenge for the Minister in terms of how we tackle Covid in the long term. We have testing, contact tracing, mask wearing, hand sanitising, air filtration and so on. All of us in the Opposition are very supportive of those measures. We need to enact them on a more long-term basis rather than repeatedly coming in with short-term measures.

The Minister spoke of the need for this legislation to empower the gardaí to enforce legislation for the protection of people on health grounds, for example by breaking up big gatherings. I would love it if the Government could empower the gardaí to break up gatherings outside our maternity hospitals, such as Holles Street hospital around the corner, by enacting the safe access zone legislation that we have been promised for three years, long before this pandemic began.

The Labour Party will not oppose this Bill. As I have said many times, we are uncomfortable with these measures but we recognise they are necessary. However, we must consider how we deal with the question of long-term living with Covid. I hope we do not need to have emergency measures again and again.