Last Monday, rural publicans were allowed to open their doors for the first time in six months. It is good to see the doors open and a bit of life in rural villages such as Gneeveguilla, Brosna, Sneem and Fieries which were totally desolate and dead for six months. I am getting very worried, however, because the first question people are asked when contacted by the contact tracers is whether they have been in a pub or restaurant in the past two weeks.

Surely there are other questions and other places they should be asking about as well. I wonder whether the same attention is being given to people who travel abroad and come back. We recognise their right and need to do that. Is there the same follow-up on quarantine when they come back from countries that are not on the green list? Why is all the focus directed on the pubs again? Is the Government going to close them again?

I think Deputy Healy-Rae needs to get with it and get a bit real. There is nothing wrong with asking a person if he or she has been in a pub if a contact tracer is trying to track down-----

It is the first question each one of them is asked.

It is not the first question. It is a sensible question to ask, as are other questions. We should not be consistently trying to undermine the public health message.

It is not the second.

I think that is what is going on here and we need to cop on.

This is the national parliament. This is the Oireachtas. We need to stand behind public health personnel, who are doing their jobs to prevent the spread of the disease or virus. This is pandering to base politics. The Deputy is trying to win votes from different sectors. That is what is going on here. I think we have had enough of it and wider society has had enough of it.

The Taoiseach is pandering.

Why does the Taoiseach hate pubs?

The Taoiseach, without interruption, please.

I welcome the fact that enterprises are reopened but there is a limit now to what is going on in terms of trying to pick and undermine everything that people are doing to try to protect broader public health.

The Taoiseach is a disgrace.

They hate the pubs.