The man is revered across Britain.

He is also not revered in Clare.

But true. It hurts sometimes.

But it is about freedom of movement.

I know that.

I wish to raise a couple of points. I thank People Before Profit for the motion and facilitating this timely debate. With regard to universal access to third level education, I do not have a problem with that per se but we need to be cognisant of what is possible. I studied briefly in Belgium - most of my studies were brief – where everybody could go on to third level education. There, they had started to transfer the pressure that we want to avoid in leaving certificate year to the first year of third level. Every…

"Hands" was the name of the programme.

I will start by going back in time a little and examining how we came to this point. I will go back ten years to be precise to a Government that had taken power in a slightly different economic situation but one that I fear is about to be revisited. I supported not all but many of the difficult decisions taken by that Government. The Minister was critical of the 2011-2016 Government, perhaps rightly in some instances. However, one achievement of that Government, and one of the reasons I supported it, was that there…

The only announcement of new flight routes out of Ireland for the past 12 months have been out of Northern Ireland. Today, eight new routes were announced out of Belfast City Airport by Ryanair, which, along with Aer Lingus, has largely moved its operations out of this jurisdiction. In this State, we have had only base closures and flight route cancellations. Is any of this ringing alarm bells for the Government? Is the Tánaiste concerned the net effect of the restrictions the Government has introduced, which are l…

I am talking about legislation in this State, from this Government.

Parents will have paid in advance for transport to schools which were shut through no fault of their own or the Minister. In any event, the buses were not running and they did not burn any fuel and did not incur any costs. Will that money be refunded?

Does that mean that they will be refunded or that they will not be refunded?

From that rather verbose answer, I think that there will be a refund. Am I correct?

I am asking a question.

I know. Will there be a refund or will there not be a refund? I do not understand why Ministers parade in here and refuse to answer basic questions.

I thank the Minister. Last week her Department sent out a circular asking two questions regarding children returning to school. One was entirely reasonable. It asked parents to certify to the best of their knowledge that their child does not have an infectious disease. The second question asked if the parents could confirm that they have adhered to all medical advice since the child's exclusion from school. This document was drawn up in September for children who were excluded from school because they had been a cl…

That was not my question.

The Minister has repeatedly stated that the banks are independent and he cannot determine what they do. NatWest Bank, the parent of Ulster Bank, has decided to leave the Irish market. Does section 10 of the Central Bank (Supervision and Enforcement) Act 2013 not allow the Government to set the parameters and conditions for banking in Ireland? Is that not the same power as the State, if not the Government directly, has in being able to set the parameters governing mobile phone providers in Ireland? A good job has no…

Section 10 of the Act allows for a requirement to maintain a certain presence, including ATMs. We were told that Bank of Ireland would maintain an ATM in every town, yet the next day Clare FM contacted the bank and it stated that it would not maintain an ATM in Kilkee, Tulla or-----

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I do not have a principled opposition to quarantine. I would be nervous about how it will be implemented, the effect it will have and whether quarantine centres themselves will become hot beds for transmission but I would not have a principled opposition to it if I thought it was the solution. I certainly do not believe that the quarantining that is being proposed in this Bill is the solution. If we could stop everybody coming into this State then we would stop coron…