Paul Murphy: Warns Reopening Hospitality Risks Hundreds of Deaths

I'll start by saying one thing positive about the rural independent group, which is that they have been consistent on Covid. Consistently wrong, in my opinion, but consistent nonetheless. At every single point of the Covid crisis, they've been for opening up, letting Covid rip, and they've consistently downplayed the dangers that this pandemic presents. What they wanted was implemented in November of last year, when we reopened in December, indoor hospitality and dining. Obviously it's the government that bears the responsibility for that, there's plenty of government backbenchers who in reality had, and continue to have, exactly the same position as the rural independent group. And over a thousand people died in January as a result of that decision. That's the truth. Over a thousand people died in February as a result of that decision. That's the truth. There's no accountability for any of that. We're all supposed to say we move on. The fact that all the opposition parties, apart from the socialist left, went along with it, we just move on and forget about that and we repeat the same mistakes again. But in fairness, they're consistent. They want to open up again now. Their motion calls to reopen indoor and outdoor hospitality right now. It presents that as if that's the alternative to the discriminatory measure which the government is proposing. That isn't the alternative. I'm against the discrimination that the government is proposing. I think it's a very bad idea. It's a particularly bad idea to rush it in the final week of the Dáil. Such a measure which has such implications in terms of health surveillance, data protection, etc. I'm against it. But the alternative is not to say, oh, we just allow everybody who's vaccinated or unvaccinated inside to hospitality. It's to recognize the public health facts and the reality that it's not safe to reopen indoor dining and hospitality at this point in time. You know, we have had media chock-a-block full for a couple of months at this point in time hearing nonstop from the lobbyists on behalf of the pubs and restaurants. We haven't heard very much in the way of nurses talking about the impact of COVID. We haven't heard anything from the workers expected to go in, who won't be vaccinated, expected to go in and work in unsafe settings. And I have all the sympathy in the world for pubs and restaurants being faced with a horrific situation of being closed for over a year in many cases. But the truth is, it's simply not safe. It's not safe for the workers. It's not safe for the wider public. The impact, if we do what they're asking now, would be hundreds more, possibly thousands more unnecessary deaths. At the moment, we're on one of the two central kind of projections of an effort. If we were to just reopen and let it rip, which is what this motion suggests, we'd probably go to 1,500 or more deaths, the impact of long COVID, etc. So the alternative is to follow the public health advice, to put public health first rather than private profit, and then to say, we're going to support properly small businesses who need it. And we're going to not cut the PUP. We're going to support workers who cannot be employed right now because their industry is shut down, because that's what's necessary in terms of public health, to allow us to get the vaccination done, and then we can reopen safely. And their alternative, which they're pushing now, is an alternative, and the government's half going in this direction, and it may well lead to the same place, to lead to a fourth wave, and another lockdown, which would be devastating for those businesses, for workers, and for wider society. There was an alternative. Again, we were the only ones calling for it. We were the ones saying, we need to introduce mandatory hotel quarantine on England, Scotland, and Wales, to slow down the spread of the Delta variant. If the government had acted when we had called for that seven weeks ago, at this stage, we would be in a very different situation. But of course, the Rural Independent Group opposed that at the time. But I make the point about the consistency of the Rural Independent Group, in order to make a point about the incredible inconsistency of Sinn Féin. Sinn Féin speakers today have said they're going to support this motion. They're supporting the motion to reopen indoor and outdoor hospitality right now. The people who have said that they're following the public health advice all the way along, but they supported the reopening of hospitality with the consequence of thousands of unnecessary deaths at Christmas time. And now they're supporting a motion calling for the reopening that would also, for unvaccinated people, that would also cause the deaths of significant numbers of people. And I think it's a real shame. I mean, the main responsibility for the situation we're in, for the fact that we've had the longest lockdown in all of Europe, for the number of deaths, over 8,000 deaths that we've had in this country, the main responsibility lies with the government for that. But if our main opposition party had taken a consistent, principled position on Covid, I think we could be in a different position. If they had consistently advocated for an alternative zero Covid policy, if they consistently not gone along with every twist and turn of the government following the lobbyists, then we might have been in a very different situation. And before the vote on this happens tonight, I'm going to ask Sinn Fein TDs to read the motion that they're signing up to if they vote for it as a number of their speakers have said that they're going to. So it calls for the reopening of indoor and outdoor hospitality right now. That's what it calls for, for everybody. So yes, it does away with the discrimination, but it does away with the discrimination in a way that will result in significant numbers of deaths. Is that the Sinn Fein position now? And the other point that we draw their intention to is the final point of the motion, which says accepts that the pursuit of a de facto zero Covid strategy aimed at the elimination of all Covid-19 variants would result in permanent and irreversible damage to the economic and social fabric of the state and the integrity of the democratic process. Again, it's a consistent position by the rural independent group. You can't criticise them for that. They've consistently advocated for a Swedish kind of let it rip model, despite the fact that it's failed. But that's fine, that's their position. But it's only a matter of months that Sinn Fein was telling us that they were in favour of a zero Covid strategy. And now they're going to vote in favour of a motion which condemns a zero Covid strategy. Which is it? If they had adopted a consistent position along the line, we could be in a very different position today. And I would make the point in defence of a zero Covid strategy, obviously it's not going to happen now. Obviously the route to reopening is going to happen through vaccination. But you look at the difference in death rates between us and New Zealand or us and Australia. So New Zealand with roughly the same population, less than 30 people have died in New Zealand. Over 8,000 people have died in Ireland. We have the longest lockdown in all of Europe. In New Zealand they've been open. Not that much impact on the economy for the vast majority of time. Or take the example of Australia, which population of 25 million had less than 1,000 deaths. Whereas us we have 8 times that amount with a population that is a fraction of their population. There was an alternative. It wasn't followed. It wasn't implemented. Because the government allowed itself to be driven by the interest of private lobbying at each successive step of the way. And short term thinking as opposed to planning in a way that would have put public health workers rights first. And would have meant the best possible and earliest possible reopening for everybody involved. Thank you.