I did not say anything about blame.

Will the Taoiseach answer the two questions I asked?

Will the Taoiseach answer my questions?

I would appreciate the Taoiseach answering my questions rather than continuing his row with Sinn Féin. That has nothing to do with me. I asked him two questions. I asked him about the provisions whereby single people cannot have visitors to their homes. They cannot have even one visitor to their homes. That is unreasonable. The Government has made a very small number of exceptions to that rule in the case of high-risk individuals.

I am not talking about high-risk individuals.

I am going by what is on the gov.ie website. I am talking about people who live alone, who may work at home and who are not allowed to have even a single visitor to their homes. That is what I want the Taoiseach to address, not the high-risk categories but regular people who live alone. What the Government is doing in this regard is unreasonable. The second question relates to what people will inevitably do if they do not have cover for sick leave: they will continue to go to work because they cannot afford not to.…

Will the Taoiseach send me a note on that because on the website it is different?

The Taoiseach should look at the special categories.

Will the Taoiseach send me a note because I do not think what he is saying is correct? Will he do that?

This is a budget like no other. It is being introduced in the context of events that are largely beyond our control. Certainly, no one would have chosen the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Covid-19 and Brexit are the twin challenges of budget 2021. How we respond to those challenges is critical. People who face insecurity, Covid-related and non-Covid health concerns, loss of income and worries about schools and all kinds of services will look to this budget to see what certainty the Government can provide…

Obviously we need to support businesses during this difficult period but there are problems with this approach. I am not going to vote against this resolution but the Government could have provided supports in a more targeted way. The first point is that the employment in the sectors affected by this VAT change tends to be of very poor quality. I repeat the point we made during the last period of a reduced VAT rate that if a benefit like this is to be given to this sector, it should be contingent on improving the w…

To pick up on a point the Minister made, the practice is not to publish NPHET's letters until the Cabinet makes a decision. They do not come out straight after NPHET meets. Let us get matters clear about the leaking of the letter or the information about the recommendation to move to level 5. Did the Minister or anybody associated with him leak that information?

It is a straight question.

That is grand. That has clarified the point. The Minister and some of his Cabinet colleagues have mentioned that there was no reason that they could see for changing the levels or restrictions from the Thursday recommendation, and that nothing had changed in those three days.

The Minister said that Thursday's conditions did not warrant raising the levels.

That was the point that Dr. Holohan was making, that when he looked at the five-day average figures, they had changed quite substantially by Saturday, and there had been a 50% increase in the five-day average over that week. Is that the case?

There was a 50% increase. There were clearly many signs. Dr. Holohan had come back to work two days earlier than planned. There was an unscheduled meeting called for Sunday. The CMO contacted the Minister directly to tell him about that and the Minister spoke to him on Sunday morning. There were many signs that the situation was quite grave. Presumably that sense was conveyed to the Minister by the CMO. What did the Minister expect NPHET to recommend in light of the worsening situation that had been outlined to him…

I did not say that.

What was the Minister expecting?

What was the Minister expecting on Sunday?