Richard Boyd Barrett urges open democracy and urgent housing action
Richard Boyd Barrett addressed the Dáil on 2 April 2020 about the government response to COVID-19, arguing that democratic scrutiny must continue alongside public health measures. He pressed for urgent housing solutions, transparency on testing and private hospital arrangements, and a parliamentary role to raise frontline concerns.
Democracy and public health
Richard Boyd Barrett argued that open, transparent decision-making is essential to public confidence and compliance during the COVID-19 crisis. He said the Dáil must continue to meet, remotely or in alternative venues, because democracy is integral to effective public health responses and trust in decision makers.
Vulnerable groups and housing needs
He highlighted urgent cases from direct provision centres, homeless hubs and overcrowded family homes where social distancing is impossible. He urged action to secure empty apartment blocks and other accommodation to allow symptomatic or exposed people to self-isolate safely, and cited teachers reporting hundreds of recently arrived students unable to access COVID-19 payments and living in overcrowded conditions.
Questions from doctors and scientists
Boyd Barrett said he had a list of 40 questions drawn up by doctors and scientists about testing, reagents, and shower facilities for health workers, but no forum to raise them. He called for a system that allows scientists and public health workers to submit concerns and for parliament to scrutinise technical and operational issues in the national response.
Transparency on private hospitals and nursing homes
He demanded scrutiny of the arrangement taking private hospital capacity under public control, noting uncertainty over management, cost and the temporary nature of the deal. He also raised wider concerns about nursing homes and stressed the need for ministers and the Taoiseach to answer questions in the interests of public health and defeating COVID-19.
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First of all, can I, on behalf of People Before Profit, pass on my deepest sympathies and condolences to anybody who's lost a loved one, whether it's here or in this country, and obviously we have to do absolutely everything we can to try and minimise further tragedies of that sort as quickly as possible. I want to also pay tribute to health workers and other essential workers who are providing the services and the protection that we need in fighting this virus, but also to all of those who are staying at home, which is going to become an increasingly difficult thing for people to do, but in doing so are protecting public health and helping fight the transmission of the virus. I do want to comment on the debate about the appropriateness of the Dáil meeting, and I'd like to say first of all that the government has said that it is acting on public health advice in most of its decisions. The list of essential workers, I assume from that, was drawn up by the National Public Health Emergency Team, and it included public representatives and journalists as well as many of the other frontline workers. And there's a very, very good reason for that, because public health medicine is unequivocal about the need for decisions in situations like this to be taken in an open and transparent manner, and that the public have the maximum amount of faith in the decision makers as we move through the crisis. So democracy is not an optional extra in that. It is critical to maintaining public compliance and public confidence in the decisions. And it is worth saying that intellectual studies on this matter have made it clear that the countries who've done best in previous pandemics are the ones that are the most open and the most democratic, not the ones that are most repressive. That's what the intellectual and scientific evidence shows. That's why it's critical that it all sits, whether it's remotely, whether it's in a different venue, or whatever, absolutely. But it is essential. And why is it essential? Because we are being contacted, as I'm sure other people in this, by people in direct provision centres, who are terrified, because they cannot social distance. Urgent action is needed. People in homeless hubs, in homeless hostels, or in overcrowded family conditions, impacted by the housing crisis, who cannot social distance, and who, if they become symptomatic, cannot self-isolate. Therefore, it is an urgent matter to air those messages and concerns as they come in, and for us collectively to do something quickly about it. In my opinion, we need to get hold of, for example, empty apartment blocks in every area to put people into suitable accommodation where they're not in overcrowded conditions. A teacher contacted me at the weekend, who works in English foreign language, who has now got 700 students contacting him, who came here since the beginning of this year, who cannot get the COVID-19 payment because they weren't working, although they had work-study visas, many of whom are living in desperately overcrowded conditions, who have people beside them who are symptomatic, and who cannot self-isolate, and who are scared, and have no money. We have to be able to transmit concerns like that. This is a list of 40 questions that were drawn up by doctors and scientists, some of whom are actually working on COVID-19 research. They include issues around reagents, around shower facilities for health workers, around the testing regime, and so on. I have had nowhere to put these questions, which are being asked by scientists and public health workers, about the issues that are concerning them, because we don't have a system for doing it at the moment. It is critical that we do this in the interests of public health. It is critical that we are able to scrutinise the arrangement with the private hospitals, where, rightly, their capacities have been taken under public control, but where we don't know precisely how that's going to be managed, how much it's going to cost, and where the government are making pronouncements such as that this is going to be a temporary arrangement. So, there's a lot of other issues, I haven't got time, about what's happening in nursing homes, and so on. But it is critical we have the opportunity to ask ministers and the Taoiseach these questions in the interests of public health, and working together to defeat COVID-19. Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister. Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister.
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