I move amendment No. 1: In page 5, to delete line 2 and substitute the following: “ ‘designated state’— (a) on the coming into operation of this Act, means any country, territory, region or other place outside the State other than Northern Ireland, (b) if at any time after passing a resolution under section 9(5) of the Health (Amendment) Act 2021 both Houses of the Oireachtas so resolve, has the meaning assigned to it by section 38E(1);”. Our amendment will provide for mandatory hotel quarantine for all travellers …

I thank him for verifying that. If the Oireachtas decides to go down the Government's route, which I oppose and I hope it does not do so, I urge the Government to implement that testing as part of it. That would give at least some form of confidence to people, even if it is a weakened confidence. Human nature means that a significant percentage of people will not unilaterally and absolutely adhere to a self-imposed quarantine. We all saw that with the people coming back into the country at Christmas. There is no wa…

I wish to raise the strategy announced yesterday on dealing with Covid-19 entitled Covid-19 Resilience & Recovery 2021: The Path Ahead. Unfortunately, though, it is anything but a path ahead. Regrettably, it is a hope-and-see strategy. There is nothing new in it that we did not know about. It is basically a wing and a prayer. It is totally reliant on vaccines. There is no effort at metrics at all. I did not want timelines. In fact, I believe the comments that were made about mid-summer should not have happened. Whi…

It is not my job.

It is the Taoiseach's job.

That is six months later.

I have suggested seven tools but they are not part of the Government's plan. Many of them were suggested previously and they were not taken on board. I find it shocking that the Taoiseach has come in here and said the Government will not provide metrics but that he is asking the Opposition to put forward metrics, given the fact that the Taoiseach is the person who deals fully with the public health advice all the time. On quarantine, what the Government is proposing is laughable. Some 2,000 Brazilians came into thi…

If the Taoiseach goes down to the University of Limerick he will see.

What about schools?

That is rubbish.

Say that to the public.

What about Germany and Denmark?

Why has the Government dumped Dr. Gabriel Scally from overseeing the implementation of the recommendations of his report on CervicalCheck? I understand the previous Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, confirmed to Dr. Scally that he would continue with his work in this regard even through the pandemic. The CervicalCheck committee has just met. It knew nothing about this. I found this out in the past couple of days. The committee had a meeting in the past few hours - it was not told. The pathways relating cervical s…

Will the Taoiseach confirm that Dr. Scally will be re-engaged in the context of implementation?

It is confirmed in the Irish Examiner .

I genuinely welcome the fact that this legislation on hotel quarantine has been brought here today but it is not enough. It is nowhere near enough. What has been proposed in respect of mandatory hotel quarantine is the absolute minimum. It is a lax regime that will only cover 20 countries. We do not know when it will be put in place. Perhaps when the Minister responds on Committee Stage, he might clarify when he expects it to be in place. It has taken nine months to get here. NPHET recommended this nine months ago.…

I have only a few minutes but I want to ask a few questions as part of this. There is a great deal to cover. It is impossible to cover it, ask questions and get answers in five minutes but we will do our best. In relation to homelessness, I know all of the organisations well and I am very much taken by some of the progress that has been made in the provision of wraparound services, particularly joined up with the approach from the HSE. I welcome much of what has been done. What lessons have been learnt in the past …

I also asked a question of the other Minister of State. Could I ask her to respond now? It is purely because of the time.

I used to believe the Departments of Justice and Health were the most dysfunctional in government for a number of years but the Department of Education has come up on the outside and taken that mantle. This is because of last year's fiasco involving indecisiveness over cancelling the leaving certificate examinations and the debacle over predicted grades. The latter involved school profiles, which had to be removed. The Minister had to apologise to 6,500 students for incorrect grading. The Minister then promised a r…

I have two points. Will the Tánaiste take on board the request of the Labour Party for both sets of students to have oral and practical examinations? That would assuage many concerns, particularly those of unions. It is a request. The Tánaiste might come back to me on that. I realise there is no certainty with Covid. I really do not have an issue with the Tánaiste saying he cannot offer a guarantee. I was not trying to put words in his mouth but the issue for me is that there is genuine concern. Why kite-fly 1 Marc…