Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2021-12-03
============================================================

Bernard Durkan (FG), Kildare North

The point is this: that is an extreme remedy. Everyone forgets that we had that for 50 years and it failed. We could go back in that direction again, try out another experiment and say, "That is the way to go." Then we think of Venezuela where the cactus blows around the streets. One can imagine the music of Ennio Morricone as Clint Eastwood rides into town in the midst of it all. That scenario will solve no problems at all; it will only make what we have worse. One thing is certain. The front-line workers have been tremendous in how they have done the job in the face of an appalling attack from the virus. The Government has responded to the virus in every way possible. That should be acknowledged and the Government complimented for it. Had the Government run away and or gone off in different directions every day, we would have a bigger problem.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-12-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:55+00:00
Sitting date: 2021-12-03