I met Deputy Shortall afterwards with Deputy Kelly. The Deputy was on the call and then left which is fair enough as it was a long meeting. People asked for a briefing the previous week. I believe the briefing was useful in dealing with the issues the Deputy has just raised, such as modelling and the Chief Medical Officer's and deputy Chief Medical Officer's perspectives on the issues. Mr. Paul Reid was there as CEO of the HSE. That briefing happened only last Monday week. I then spoke to party leaders later in the…

I am speaking generally and that is what is said.

I will answer the Deputy's questions. I did not interrupt her. I have time to answer her two questions but the Deputy mentioned an all-island approach. It is being tossed about the place that we should have an all-island approach and the Government should sort it. Parties in this House which are on the Northern Executive cannot sort it. We need to get real about it. There are political realities and sensitivities which the Northern Executive must deal with and which I endeavour to be political about in the sense of…

I have. If the Deputy asks the First Minister and deputy First Minister, they will say that. I understand the pressures they are under.

I will do everything I can them to support them in having to deal with what is a very serious situation for them and the people of Northern Ireland, as it is for the Republic. On the issue of no visitors allowed to homes, that is the whole idea of the bubble. I am answering the question. The idea is that we do not have a person on his or her own who cannot have a connection with another household. The raison d'être in this regard is to reduce social isolation and that is why that measure was brought forward. Again,…

No, that is not-----

It is not high-risk------

The Deputy misunderstands the social bubble. She has got it wrong. I hate saying that but it is just the reality.

I do not have to send the Deputy a note. What is proposed will allow persons living alone, parenting alone or similarly at risk of social isolation to pair with one other household as part of an extended household. This must be an exclusive bubble. For both households, this is their extended household and this will allow for social support beyond the provision of care exemptions already available so this is not in the context of-----

This is not in the context of special categories, it is in the context of ending social isolation. On workers in vulnerable situations, we have dealt with that. We have communicated with those workers on the ground. There is the pandemic illness payment and we have made it very clear to them that they will not lose out on income if they come forward with symptoms, are tested, etc. That happened way back in the summer. As the Deputy knows, there has been a serial testing programme under way in meat plants for quite …

The Deputy spoke about what happened two weeks ago, which was on a Sunday. The previous Thursday evening, the Government received a letter from the same body, NPHET, that did not even recommend moving from level 2 to level 3. These are the facts. This is the prelude to what happened on the Sunday. Suffice it to say, the letter on Sunday took the Government by surprise, and everybody in the House bar the Deputy and Deputy Boyd Barrett. They were the two Deputies who wanted to move to level 5 at that stage, whereas n…

I am sort of taken aback by the Deputy's enthusiasm for the statist approaches in some Asian countries towards controlling populations but that is another debate. Asian countries are doing well and I think that is because of the experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, and the fact they use their police and a much stronger state apparatus for contact tracing and so on. They learned a great deal from the SARS epidemic and the West, perhaps, was behind in that regard. Zero Covid does mean lockdown. Th…

No, they do not-----

The Deputy knows that New Zealand is not Ireland. Our geographical location, in my view, makes zero Covid not credible and very difficult to implement. We are not in a position to seal the Border, nor would we want to. Second, we have historically a very close relationship with Great Britain. Families travel to and fro. Surely they are not going to seal that border. We are part of the EU and an outward economy and society. I do not know if the Deputy picked up on some of the columns written by our own journalists i…

Quarantine is not going to happen to the degree people suggest. It is just not. Our geographic location and connectivity makes zero Covid, in my view, not capable of implementation. I believe NPHET share that view. The Chief Medical Officer and deputy CMO have heard this and the people who put this forward are serious people. I am not ridiculing or undermining people but I genuinely do not believe it is a credible proposition for us as a country to seal ourselves off - and it does mean that. The alternative strateg…

We could give back 15 minutes on Taoiseach's Questions. I am not dodging Taoiseach's Questions.

That is wrong. That did not happen.

That is wrong. The Deputy cannot say that. That is not on.

My understanding is that the Business Committee is due to meet today, or that it can do so. We have no difficulty in engaging with the Business Committee, as the Chief Whip has made clear, to work out the arrangements that might be optimal for the House to debate all of these issues. I hope Deputy Gannon did not mind that I interrupted him. The reason I did is because the Minister for Education and Skills gave positive feedback to the Cabinet on the reaction on the ground to the operation of schools. It has been ag…

If the Deputy is agreeable to a Business Committee meeting-----