Quarantine proposals- full of holes and will not prevent importation of virus and will guarantee a longer lockdown
At the Dáil debate today on the proposals for mandatory quarantine Richard Boyd Barrett TD will cite the government’s legislation as “the next instalment of a failed and defective government policy on Covid which will continue to undermine the huge efforts of the public to get the pandemic under control”.
People Before Profit have submitted over 20 amendments to ensure that the quarantine regime will apply to all incoming travellers and not just to a small number of listed countries.
He will point out that the government’s legislation on quarantine, as currently drafted, is “full of holes and will not prevent importation of the virus and new variants, and as such, will guarantee a longer lockdown”.
Deputy Boyd Barrett will say: “The government’s legislation and proposals for quarantine are the latest instalment of a failed and defective policy, which is made up of half measures and which will continue to undermine the huge sacrifices and effort that the public have made to bring case numbers of the virus down.
“The mandatory quarantine legislation is so full of holes that it is likely to be worse than useless. What we need is a mandatory quarantine system that enforces mandatory hotel quarantine to anyone coming into the country. If it only applies to a small number of countries and we have multiple exceptions and waivers, then we will fail to prevent the importation of the virus. With the different variants that have appeared and are still appearing, such as the California variant, this will guarantee a much longer lockdown.
“The government need to abandon the dangerous fantasy that you can live alongside this virus or that you get it under control with half-hearted measures. The government must accept that we need to radically change direction and take decisive action to drive down virus levels so that they are manageable. Instead, we are presented with proposals from the government that will guarantee that the virus continues to circulate in the community and that we will continue to import new variants that will undermine public health efforts and potentially sabotage even the vaccination programme.”
