Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues for their contributions. I would like to start by echoing the sentiments of Senator Murphy. This has been a brutal time. Thousands of people living in Ireland have died and many thousands more have been very sick. It has been the most difficult of times. Relative to most other countries in the world, Ireland has done well in protecting people and keeping them safe. The credit for that goes to the national effort. It is not about Government or all of us in the Oireachtas. Obviously, all of us here have a role to play, but what has characterised Ireland's response to Covid is solidarity and a national effort, where people have stepped up, taken care of each other, looked after each other and kept each other safe throughout the country. When we look back on it in years to come, it is something Ireland will rightly be proud of, while obviously being cognisant of the horrific toll it has taken on life, health and so many aspects of our country.

The advice at the moment is to get vaccinated or boosted, to wear a mask in the appropriate settings, and to stay at home if you are symptomatic. It is very important we continue to get that message out. I acknowledge the comments from several colleagues who have asked that we push further on communications. We can, and we are doing so. We have been communicating the whole time, but as one Senator pointed out, the war in Ukraine has dominated news coverage for very understandable reasons. It has been quite difficult to get the same level of messaging out there, but we will continue and redouble our efforts to do that. We have to reach the 700,000 people who are clearly supportive of vaccines and are protected by them, who have had their two doses and have protected their country, friends and families in doing so, and tell them it is equally important they get their third dose. At the same time, I received advice from the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, late last night on a second booster for those aged 65 and over and the immunocompromised. There is more subtlety and nuance to it, but that is the main message. In its letter to me, NIAC emphasised how important it is for people to get the booster and for pregnant women to get the vaccine.

There has been a lot of very useful talk and contributions made on the future and what we are doing to prepare for the future. There are multiple things going on at the moment. The first is the day-to-day surveillance of the epidemiological situation. That is being led by the Department and the Chief Medical Officer and his team. They are pulling in experts as required. I assure Senators there is an ongoing daily surveillance of what is happening in Ireland and around the world, and what is happening in our hospitals, nursing homes, communities and so forth. I am getting ongoing advice. As I said earlier, we need to publish that advice. Some of it has been put up online in recent days. The advice is coming in regularly. Absolutely, Members of the Oireachtas and members of the public and the media have a right to see it. We will ensure it is made available.

The second thing that is happening, as colleagues will be aware, is that Professor Brady is leading a piece of work at the moment that is looking back at Ireland's performance in Covid, including lessons learned, what we did well and what we did not do so well, and decisions we got right and decisions we did not get right, with a view to informing the future of public health and what we can learn from that. It is a very important piece of work. I am expecting a report from that group in the summer.

The third thing that is happening is that I am establishing a new Covid advisory group. There is a team looking at the day-to-day epidemiology and another team looking backwards to review what went well and did not go well and what we can learn. The advisory group will look at the medium to long term in respect of Covid. It will focus on issues such as technologies we should be deploying, the advances made in testing and tracing, ventilation, diagnosis and treatment, and advances made in the deployment of resources nationally to help fight Covid. Obviously, we do not want to see another variant of concern but we have to plan on the basis that one could emerge. I am putting together an expert multidisciplinary group to look at that. I have spoken to many members over the past week or so who have agreed to take part in it. We will be announcing more details on the group shortly.

Finally, research is ongoing. I have the greatest of respect for Senator Buttimer but I am afraid I will have to disagree with him on this issue. It is essential that we have world-class research teams looking at future pandemic preparedness. It is something many Asian countries did when it came to SARS. They learnt from the SARS outbreak and invested a lot of money in looking to the future. They determined that if another pandemic were to arrive, they would be prepared. Dr. Holohan is going to be leading a lot of that thinking and research in Trinity College Dublin. There will be a broad collaboration across academic institutions and the healthcare system. There will be links with the WHO, Europe and the HERA Institute, which is looking at the pandemic. It is essential we undertake world-class research and have teams of researchers who are going to ensure Ireland is as prepared as we possibly can be in the years to come for a future pandemic. There is a lot of work going on in terms of the current situation, what has happened, the medium term and the long term.

This debate was originally supposed to be on mask wearing, so I will finish on that issue, because various people have raised it. The advice is very clear that masks still have an important role to play. People on public transport should be wearing masks. It is particularly important to wear a mask in crowded indoor settings. It is essential that visitors to nursing homes or healthcare settings also wear masks. That advice is the same. The question is whether we want to have it on a regulatory basis and whether we want to be fining people and potentially arresting them for non-compliance. My view and that of the Government and, indeed, the advice of public health is that we do not. We are transitioning from an emergency phase of Covid to a living with Covid phase. It is fair to say we do not have the level of compliance, for example, on public transport, that we would like. We need to do more and we will continue to communicate that. Obviously, we all have a role in that. Notwithstanding some variant of concern that may arise, going forward, we want to operate on the basis of responsibility, personal choice and solidarity, which I think has worked very well in Ireland right through the pandemic.