I thank the Minister of State for agreeing to give me time. I was at meeting of the Business Committee. I accept these difficult decisions have to be made and I commend all Deputies on making them. However, we make them without the necessary information. We cannot change the information that we have now but we can make sure that we are not in this position again. During the lockdown the national self-harm registry stopped collecting and collating data. Staff started collecting the data again fully at the end of Aug…

Before the Minister continues, I want to say that I fundamentally disagree with a question of this importance being determined after a debate lasting 145 minutes, which gives less than one minute per Deputy in the Chamber. I propose that Standing Orders be suspended to allow for more time. I appreciate that the Government has a difficult decision to make but that decision must be made after adequate debate in this Parliament. If that debate is not to take place in the Dáil, I ask the Government where it is to take …

Will people be able to go to Christmas mass?

I return to a matter I raised yesterday, which is the marts. I have now seen the regulations that the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, has said were introduced last night. Unfortunately, they were only published today, as is the norm, and there is mention of agricultural services. I raised this specifically with the Taoiseach but I do not know if the Tánaiste has ever been in a mart. I presume he has, for electioneering purposes at least. There is usually a catwalk across which people can walk and farmers will…

I want to begin by thanking my colleagues in the Independent Group for giving me the time to speak on this motion, especially those who do not agree with my views but who think that debate is important. Most of us should, as democrats, believe that debate is important. This needs to be debated. Giving Deputies 50 seconds each to debate what is the most fundamental set of restrictions to rights in this State in its history is not democracy. I agree with the points made by Deputy O'Donnell. I disagree with him to the…

That is not true.

That is not true.

It was a decision of the Government.

No. I explained how important debate is to a democracy, because if it does not happen here, it happens somewhere else.

I call for the record of the House to be corrected. Regulation 5(1) sets out that a person shall not leave his or her home without reasonable excuse. Regulation 5(2) sets out what a reasonable excuse is. It states that a priest or a minister saying mass online only is a reasonable excuse. By extension, saying mass in public is not a reasonable excuse. Regulation 5(3) states that regulation 5(1) is a penal provision. I call on the Minister to correct the record of this House.

We could not have parliamentary accountability, could we?

Post offices are an essential social service. They provide a service that needs to be maintained. I was a Deputy between 2011 and 2016 when, because of the completely reckless behaviour of previous Governments, there was a complete retrenchment of public services. Savings had to be found everywhere, in the most horrible places imaginable. That put huge pressure on the post office network. A number of post offices were marked to close. I worked with local communities in Broadford and Cratloe and their work prevented…

The Taoiseach will be aware of the expression "a pig in a poke". Farmers and buyers will not buy a pig in a poke, they will want to go and inspect the cattle they are buying. In so doing, there will be more contacts between people than there would be if marts were allowed to continue to operate as they are now under the restrictions. I ask, therefore, that the Taoiseach think about allowing marts to remain open. On a related matter, this whole move to online is not the panacea it is being presented as. Even clothes…

There will be more mixing than would be the case with social distancing.

The Taoiseach said that there will be more mixing, not less.

When was the last time NPHET representatives were in a mart or in a hospital for that matter?

I will return perhaps to the European Council. I completely agree with Deputy Mattie McGrath to the extent that we are an outlier in Europe. We have imposed far greater restrictions on people than any other European state over the past six months consistently, and for what? For a policy that has utterly failed. I appreciate that this is not necessarily the remit of the Department of the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, but I am sure he will troop through the lobbies and we will roll over all these restrictions with…

How on earth could that not be an impediment? Does the Government intend to continue with this canard and pretend there is no impediment to travel abroad between green list countries while telling people they have to take two weeks' unpaid leave? What will the Government do to develop a testing protocol to enable people to travel between orange list and red list countries? It is quite clear from what the Council agreed that people can travel between green regions without any restrictions, that a person is always al…

They do not have to be when the Government is shutting them down.

The Government is shutting everything down.