No. We had a long discussion about this at the Business Committee. Obviously we had to make a decision, but I am not satisfied that we cannot have the Minister here tomorrow for two hours with a break of 40 minutes. Like everybody else, I want to see convincing evidence of scientific and medical advice. Maybe I picked it up wrongly from the Whip, but my understanding at the meeting was that the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection, Regina Doherty, had no problem with appearing, but the Taoiseach and the Minister for Health would not allow two hours. We had this issue last week with the Minister.

We expect workers throughout the country to work on building sites and everywhere else that, thankfully, we have opened, although we need to open more of them. We have a different rule for the House, in spite of the size of the Chamber and the distancing between the seats. I appreciate the efforts of staff and everybody else, as well as those on the front line, but this has gone on too long. We need to see the evidence, not just hear it, so that we can understand and appreciate it. There is a great deal of conflicting evidence in respect of the rules being imposed.

I saw Deputy Kelly smiling a moment ago because he has been looking for the minutes for months, but it is like pulling teeth. One cannot get a dentist's appointment and one cannot get the minutes, which is strange. I object to the proposal for dealing with tomorrow's business.

I do not wish to labour this point but there are two issues. The first relates to how we conduct our business based on the guidelines. I know the advice is that every workplace is different but look at the size of this place. This is ridiculous. I raised these concerns last week with the Taoiseach and the Ceann Comhairle, and I wrote to the Taoiseach, although I have not yet got a response. I want to raise a broader issue-----

The Deputy got a response from me last week.

Yes, I did and I will reply to it, which I know the Ceann Comhairle will look forward to. We have certain conditions in the Chamber that we do not expect workers or employers throughout Ireland to mirror.

The Labour Party and I have a deep concern about whether a dangerous precedent is being created. Within these conditions, we could be working like this for a considerable period, and the likelihood is that we will be. The precedent set last week by the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, will now be pushed on this week, although admittedly in a slight variation, which I respect. Is a dangerous precedent being set? If or when a Government is formed, how will the Oireachtas honour the Constitution and ensure Ministers are held to account working in those conditions, given that it may be unworkable? We need to tread very carefully here.

There are issues with how we assemble as a Dáil. We need to have a deeper look at this in the context of the public health advice. The Ceann Comhairle sent a letter, helpfully-----

This is not about public health advice.

I ask that the Deputy let Deputy Micheál Martin speak and we will hear him.

The Ceann Comhairle forwarded to us a helpful letter from Professor Cormican last week.

I did.

That will be a study in itself in years to come by politicians and public health students - you name it - because it is a masterpiece of writing.

It was very interesting, all right.

I refer in particular to the last part, in which the professor reminded us he had always understood that it was we who set the rules for him, rather than he setting the rules for us, but the correspondence was striking. It stated there was no public health advice anywhere that suggested a two-hour limit for meetings but rather that it was an issue of contact tracing, which the professor then described as a rule of thumb that public health officials had put together. I respectfully suggest there are issues with that and I think Deputy Kelly is correct that we should examine how we look at it in the future. I am aware of one parliament in Europe where 180 MPs turned up for a roll call today. While I do not suggest we do that, we need to look at how we will work this out into the future. I have my concerns about meeting in the Convention Centre and the costs of that. We have to rethink how we set about this. Notwithstanding the advice that has been received, the two-hour rule does not make sense to me as we move on. In the letter we received last week, Professor Cormican stated there was a very low possibility of anything happening to anybody in these circumstances. We are practising social distancing, good hygiene and so on. We need to look at the matter again.

I thought the correspondence last week was very helpful.

It has made clear that the two-hour concern is in the event of an infection and who would be considered close contacts and who would have to isolate and be tested, quickly we would hope. It is certainly not an argument for minimising ministerial appearances for the purposes of public scrutiny and should not be used for that purpose. As Deputy Kelly has said, we have here the benefit of great ventilation for all the hot air, from this end and not from the Ceann Comhairle's end. We have many advantages as a workplace. Our job is to maximise the interactions we can have and not to minimise them. I am concerned that this is being used for people to minimise their appearances here and the necessary scrutiny. This is very concerning.

We are now moving into a phase of thoughtful and careful unwinding of the public emergency measures. People are anxious to get back to work and they will get back to work, but they must see that we are back at work too. This is very important. I do not see why Ministers and officials cannot present themselves. We have the space to make the necessary arrangements. The two-hour rule around defining close contacts arises specifically in the unfortunate event of an infection. That is the status. I believe the correspondence made that very clear.

I believe most people would have expected a change as a consequence of the correspondence last week. That this has not happened is a problem. This was discussed in detail at the Business Committee. There is deep unease that there are two sets of rules depending on who one is, and that we expect people to do an eight-hour shift where the same sorts of issues do not impact.

I do not want to hold up, nor will I object to, tomorrow's business. We do need, however, to square the circle in how we go on from here. It is not just about setting the agenda for this week. It is also about how we will deal with things next week, next month and in six months' time. The proposal is not good enough. We must find a mechanism to deal with this so we can have some degree of normality, hold the Government to account and have committee meetings, all within the Covid-19 confines that are patently there.

I believe this is also relevant to the debate around our ability to have committee hearings. Public health advice about the health implications of proximity is acting as a barrier to having further committees to cover the many different areas in our society where people are in real trouble and need their voices heard. We are told we can only have one committee because of physical constraints relating to public health guidelines. It looks like these are just excuses.

I will throw a real spanner into the works now. There is no consistency on the issue of who is considered a close contact of a person who is Covid-positive. I am sure all Members have been reading the RTÉ website since the outbreak of this crisis. At the end of every single article, it says that a person who has been in close contact in the same room as somebody else for more than 15 minutes - not two hours - is a close contact. It says that this is the public health advice. On that basis, nothing in this country would be operating at all. It is nonsense. We need consistency on this. The difference is that essential workers have been working all the time under very different conditions of close contact - according to these definitions, for two hours or 15 minutes - to keep our society functioning-----

We cannot keep having a detailed debate about it.

This House is doing essential work to represent the people of this country.

I do not want to hold up tomorrow's business. It is important that the Estimate is adopted. I have a very serious concern around the justification for the way the Minister will present to the House tomorrow.

This is referencing the justification given last week by the Minister for Health as his reason not to come in to answer legitimate questions which I had raised here the week before regarding the operation of the meat industry which had been found to be correct. There is absolutely no medical basis for the justification that was given by the Minister for Health here last week. I do not want to see that now being used as a mechanism and a justification to set a precedent for Ministers not to be held accountable here for legitimate issues regarding the operation and management of Covid-19, as well as many other issues which will arise over the next 12 months, 18 months and two years until these restrictions are lifted.

Before I call the Taoiseach, I will just point out two matters. There is a difference between the call from many Members for a debate on the principle of this two-hour duration regime, which I believe would be more appropriately explored in some detail at the Covid committee. There is a difference between that and the issue before us today, which is simply a piece on the Order of Business, namely, do we or do we not transact the business tomorrow.

The second point Members must bear in mind is that they should read Standing Order 29 which makes it abundantly clear that it is a matter for the Government to determine which, as well as how, Ministers come in to respond to matters raised on the floor of the House.

I was about to make that point. It has always been the case - at least for as long as I have been in the House - that the Government decides which Ministers come in. It is often that a different Minister comes in but it is always the case a Minister is there.

On the Health Protection Surveillance Centre, HPSC, guidance, for the benefit of Deputy Boyd Barrett, it is actually both, namely, 15 minutes in close proximity or two hours in the same space.

We are, however, all feeling our way through an unprecedented scenario. The truth is that, as the virus diminishes in the community - there were only 30 or so new cases yesterday - we are able to take more calculated risks. What might have been the right thing to do two or three weeks ago, may be different now and may be different again in the next couple of weeks. We should accept that it is a risk, however. There is a genuine risk that if there is any Minister or politician here for more than two hours and somebody else in the Chamber or they test positive, then all of the people in the Chamber will be required to self-isolate for 14 days. That is the truth. The objective is to make sure that the Government is held to account.

That is not accurate.

It would be much harder to hold Ministers to account if they are self-isolating in a room for 14 days.

Perhaps there is a practical solution to this. The Minister, Regina Doherty, is happy to take the Supplementary Estimate. I do not understand why it will take six hours given that it is a straightforward, no-policy change, Supplementary Estimate. She is happy to do it, however. The logical thing to do is that she does two hours here and then move directly to the committee room to do the rest from there. Then we can leave the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, out of it, if Members want Regina Doherty to be the one to do the full six hours. The solution would be for her to do two hours here in the Chamber and then move to the committee room for the next two, four or whatever number of hours it will take.

With respect, I think it is matter for the Taoiseach and the Government.

We are happy to do that.

My understanding is that the Minister, Regina Doherty, who is unelected is unable to move the Estimate. It must be the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, or another Minister, who must move it.

Standing Order 29 is about the Government deciding what Ministers come in. We have no issue with that. We are told by the Whip that the Minister, Regina Doherty, has no issue with coming in. The problem is with this two-hour trick - we can call it that rather than a three-card trick - which is continuing, meaning the Government will not come in and be held accountable.

I am objecting to tomorrow’s business on that basis. We have Professor Martin Cormican's advice but we have many other advices as well. It seems the Ceann Comhairle and the Taoiseach are stuck with this. Are they welded to NPHET, the National Public Health Emergency Team? What is going on? Are we getting the answers? I am objecting totally.

Given the order of the House in relation to the transaction of divisions, we must now take a sos for ten minutes.