Danny Healy-Rae asks to reopen construction, raise funeral limits

Thank you very much, Tiankorle. Taoiseach, I want to raise with you today to ask you to open up construction for all those workers that haven't been working for the last four or five months. But first of all, I want to respectfully ask you to increase the numbers that can go into a church for a funeral mass. And you see, I'm asking you to take into consideration places like the cathedral and big churches, the size and the height and the capacity that they have to increase those numbers. And Father Gerard Walsh was on our radio last week and he said that we have a professor for everything but we don't have a professor or a position created for a man or a person with common sense. And I sympathise and sympathise and sympathise with the McCarty family today in Guinea Village, yesterday they lost their, Jack McCarty lost his wonderful wife Mary Theresa and there's about a hundred in that family, I don't know how they're going to manage but I don't envy the person that will decide who the team are to go in there. However, I want to go on to construction because for too long now there's some construction workers can't go to work if you're involved in social housing or in that line you can. So team can go to work, it's very darling for some people and then Tom or Moj can go to work because he's not working in social housing. And you see, not everyone gets on the social housing list and people do need houses if they're not, and people don't want to build their own houses and they should be allowed to finish them and to do that. And you see, you have to recognise that English recruitment companies are looking for all workers, skilled, carpenters, plumbers, skilled drivers, flannery's advertising weekly for 360 degrees drivers, for dumpers, for dumpers and for different vehicles to work on the HS2 high-speed rail, the biggest jobs since the English Channel. And if you don't believe me, Taoiseach, you can get to look at Twitter, he's good on Facebook and he can check out all those, what's happening in that line and surely he should work together and see that. And they're looking for women as well, in case that Minister Madigan is listening in to it. Thank you very much, Deputy. Well, time is up, Deputy, thank you. We have to go to the Taoiseach. Taoiseach, under Leader's Questions, we're supposed to deal with only one topic, not two. There's no time up on the screen. Yeah, well, I have time here in front of me, so you're all right, don't worry. Taoiseach. Well, first of all, I want to thank the Deputy for raising the issue. And in the first instance, I would say to the Deputy that in his overall presentation, he essentially was dealing with the very negative impact that COVID has had on all our lives. Be it in terms of observing, you know, attending Mass or attending religious service, in terms of construction and in other areas of life. The virus has upended our lives. Not government, not the Dáil, not the Oireachtas, the virus. And the problem now is we have a virulent form of that virus, the B.1.1.7, which is the dominant variant in the country. And we need to be very, very careful how we deal with that variant in terms of dealing with restrictions and so forth. And that is why the next number of days we will spend a lot of time talking and getting the epidemiological data. And I'm very conscious that in the last number of days, deputies, the numbers have gone up far yesterday and everybody in this house needs to take that on board and interrogate that. That is serious. That is serious. We are rolling out the vaccination program. We will have far more vaccines in the second quarter, where over 700,000 doses have been administered now. And I think that's an important point. As we move through April, in particular, we will have far more vaccinated. So in terms of funerals, I do understand and accept fully the sincerity of the deputy's presentation. I think it's terrible myself. It's the one aspect of COVID that I think hits people the hardest, that you can't attend the funeral of a loved one. The numbers are very, very low. We will look at that. We've been asked by the churches to look at it. I'm not giving any commitments or guarantees in relation to it, because we want to protect people. And unfortunately, some events at some funerals, minority, have led to a spread of the virus, not in the church that has to be said, but in events subsequent. And there have been very significant outbreaks relating to funerals, unfortunately. Hence the extreme caution and regulations that have been put in place in relation to funerals. In terms of construction, the evidence was that general mobility would give rise to the spread of this variant. And I still just, I remember deputy back in January, when again, we had 2000 people in hospital. And I remember, I remember saying here, because everybody at the time was into suppressing the virus and into zero COVID. And let's never kind of open again, was the prevailing mood in the chamber, given the extraordinary pressure that was on our hospitals and frontline healthcare workers. And I did say at the time, you know, I knew it wouldn't be too long before, and I mean this, you know, the deputies would come back saying, let's open this and open that. And I understand it. But we are dealing with a very transmissible variant at the moment. Thank you, Tisha. And that's something we need to take on board. It's not government or anybody who's trying to stop people to go back building. Government wants a housing program. It's the number one priority of us socially in terms of building more homes. But this variant and this virus is upending the best laid plans and most of all the quality of people's lives. Thank you very much, Tisha. Time really is up. We have to go back to Deputy Healy Ray. Tisha, I respect the problem that you have and that the government has. And the problem is, though, that we're not getting the figures down. And if that's going to continue, it'll have to be sensible and allow sectors of the community to open up and to work well and trust people. Because to work in farm buildings, people can keep away from each other. To work in this rural house, a one-off house, or to work in a small building estate, they can keep away from each other. And you see, there's other groups like small traders and shops. They're under severe pressure from multinational companies that are trading online. And they're not ever going to be able to open up if this thing goes too far. And I'm afraid that it is. And just take the hairdressers. When they were allowed open, they were very careful. Just allowed one in at the time. Thank you, Deputy. And things like that. You have to be sensible and trust people to work. Because I don't know who or what is going to pay for this if it's going to continue. And we're going to lose all our workers to England. Thank you very much. Taoiseach, to conclude on this matter. Deputy, there was one week in January when we had 42,000 cases. One seven-day period. And we had 2,000 people in hospital. The last seven days, 3,800 people. And today we have about 300. I think the latest is 29. 329 in hospital. Please stop saying the figures aren't coming down. That's killing people saying that. That's telling people their efforts aren't working. The efforts and sacrifices of people have worked against a very virulent, dangerous and transmissible virus. We have got the numbers down quite dramatically because of our efforts. And meanwhile, we're vaccinating more and more people. And we have vaccinated the most vulnerable in our society, which is also working. The serial testing in the nursing homes is yielding a positivity rate of 0.18%. That's how much the vaccines are working where they have been administered. Likewise, in our frontline healthcare workers, the vaccines have worked. That's the parallel process we have to work on. Thank you, Taoiseach. Time is up. I just say to you, and I understand fully where you're coming from. Believe me. But economically, all over the world has been proven actually, that the more you try and keep the pressure on the virus economically, medium and long term, you'll do better. Thank you, Taoiseach. Time is up now. The variant is a real problem. That's all I'm saying to you, Deputy. It just takes off if it's given a chance. Thank you very much. Merci.