Paul Murphy condemns vaccine-status discrimination in hospitality

That is an interesting contribution to come behind because it is, in fairness, it is an honest defence of the government's position. I do not agree with it at all and I will explain why. First thing is that it is unjust. It is absolutely unjust and unfair to discriminate against people on the basis of their vaccination status. It is doubly or triply unjust to do so at a time when almost half of the population or the adult population haven't had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated if they wanted to be. It is triply unjust to ask, not ask, to force hospitality workers who are not vaccinated to go in to work in conditions that are dangerous and they are not vaccinated. Those things, in my opinion, to say they are not unjust is to, you know what I mean, take meaning out of the term unjust. They are the definition of unjust. They are deeply divisive. They unfortunately are going to undermine the vaccination effort, which is extremely important, which is the only way, which is the way in terms of where we are currently at, out of the nightmare situation that we are in. That is the effect that they are having and dividing society. And the reason that the government is doing what they are doing in this extremely rushed way of very important legislation is because they want to open the indoor hospitality. You are willing to do all of that, you are willing to divide society so that we can open indoor hospitality six or seven or eight weeks earlier than what would otherwise happen. And that sums up the middle road that Deputy McAuliffe was talking about. The middle road has been a disaster. The middle road was in November bowing to the pressure of the lobbyists to open hospitality in December and to cause the deaths of over a thousand people in January and over a thousand people in February. The idea that Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael and the Greens can still present themselves as this reasonable middle of the road government after making such a decision to put private profit before public, before lives of people is quite astounding. And it is the same basic decision being made now. It won't have the same level of disastrous consequences because of the level of vaccination that we have in our society. But the discrimination will be deeply divisive in our society. It will place in danger the health of hospitality workers. It will cause long COVID for whatever number of young people and it will result in some extra debt. And the other thing is that you and your middle of the road position may be back here in two months time having to turn things back, going for a lockdown, which would be an absolute disaster and a nightmare for ordinary people. The last point I want to make, because I also wanted to make reference to the CMO's, Dr. Houlihan's comments in relation to encouraging under 18s not to go to hospitality. Deputy McGrath hears that and says he's got a death wish for the hospitality industry. Deputy McGrath thinks unvaccinated people, teenagers, who are just as liable to get COVID, to be affected by COVID, to spread COVID, he thinks they should be encouraged to go to indoor congregated settings where people aren't wearing masks? Does he have a death wish for the population? The last time that Dr. Houlihan said, don't go into hospitality was in December. He advised people, despite the government's recommendation, don't go into hospitality. And he was right at that time. If people had taken that advice, and I don't blame them for not, because it was the government position saying everything's open, off you go, enjoy a so-called meaningful Christmas. But if everybody had taken that advice, well then we would have saved a lot of lives. So what I take from his comments is not that it's a death wish for the hospitality industry or whatever. What I take from his comments is that it's a real mistake of the government to do what they're doing. It's a particular mistake to do what they're doing without any legislation around ventilation. It's a real mistake to do what they're doing with this allowing unvaccinated under 18s in as if it makes a difference, as well as, of course, the whole notion of discrimination, which you're completely opposed to. The final point I'll make is that there is an alternative. There is a very clear alternative staring us in our face, which is to wait for the reopening of indoor hospitality, to protect the reopening that has happened so far, to protect lives, and then to make sure that we protect incomes. Because why are people asking to open? Because they're in a crisis situation. So what we need to say is that we're going to protect the supports for small businesses who need them as a result, who cannot open as a result of the government's measures which are necessary for public health. We have to say that the PUP should not be cut. That this section of the economy cannot open at this point in time, so we're not going to cut the PUP. That's the very, very simple choice that we can make to protect lives, to protect health, to avoid discrimination, and to protect people's income. That's the choice that should be being made tonight. But unfortunately, the government looks as if they will push through to make the very opposite choice to that.