More than two weeks ago, on 4 October, NPHET wrote to the Government outlining the deteriorating situation with the coronavirus. It called for level 5 measures across the country for four weeks. The Government rejected that advice.

What is more, the Tánaiste went on RTÉ, channelled his inner Donald Trump and publicly trashed and undermined the public health advice. Two weeks ago, in the Chamber, I warned this approach would not avoid going to level 5 and that it would simply mean going to level 5 later and for longer, after lives had been lost in nursing homes and in the community. That is precisely where we are now. When NPHET wrote to the Taoiseach two weeks ago, there had been 3,000 cases in the previous week. Now, the figure is more than 7,500. Then, there was a 14-day incidence rate of 108 per 100,000; now it is 262. Then there were 31 outbreaks in nursing homes; now there are almost 200. Now, because the Taoiseach did not follow the public health advice, we have a six-week lockdown instead of a lockdown for four weeks. The economy will suffer more damage as a result of this decision. Mental health will be more affected. Women and children facing abusive situations are more at risk. More people will die. Will the Taoiseach admit he made a grave mistake two weeks ago? Will he apologise for that mistake?

The future the Taoiseach has outlined today, what he has to offer people, is a lockdown for six weeks followed by partial reopening followed by a lockdown, again and again, disrupting our lives until a vaccine is found in a year or two. What if a vaccine is never found? That is an appalling vista for people. The Government squandered the sacrifices people made in the summer and failed to take the opportunity then to crush Covid. That mistake must not be repeated. This is why we need a zero-Covid strategy. Despite the Taoiseach's scaremongering in his speech last night, this does not mean locking down until there are no cases. It is about achieving zero community transmission. It means being able to trace immediately any outbreaks that happen.

The WHO has made clear that lockdowns are simply a way to buy time to put in place measures to prevent further outbreaks. These measures now need to be put into place. They include world-class find, test, trace and isolate support infrastructure to hunt down the virus and building a national health service, not by renting private hospitals at extortionate cost but by bringing them into public ownership and incorporating them into our public health service. It means providing people with the support they need to protect others from becoming infected, proper sick pay, a fully restored pandemic unemployment payment and an evictions ban that does not lapse in December promising a wave of Christmas evictions. It means directing the banks to reinstate mortgage moratoriums for people.

Will the Taoiseach apologise for the mistake he made two weeks ago? Does he agree that we cannot repeat the mistakes of the summer and we have to embrace a zero-Covid strategy so this lockdown is the last one that people have to endure?

The Deputy spoke about what happened two weeks ago, which was on a Sunday. The previous Thursday evening, the Government received a letter from the same body, NPHET, that did not even recommend moving from level 2 to level 3. These are the facts. This is the prelude to what happened on the Sunday. Suffice it to say, the letter on Sunday took the Government by surprise, and everybody in the House bar the Deputy and Deputy Boyd Barrett. They were the two Deputies who wanted to move to level 5 at that stage, whereas nobody else did because of the enormous impact it would have on people.

This is not an exact science and let us not pretend that it is. What we have not quantified yet is the human cost of lockdowns, if we are honest. We are getting evidence on the damage to children who are out of school for too long, in terms of regression and life chances, particularly for disadvantaged children who may leave school early. This is hard to calculate. We have yet to quantify and do proper research on delayed diagnoses resulting from a large number of people not using our hospitals during the first lockdown for non-Covid illnesses. Deputy Kelly has been raising this for quite some time. In other words, these are cancer patients, heart patients and people with a range of diagnoses who just said they would not go to hospital and delayed. Many consultants and clinicians are worried about delayed diagnoses. This is not an exact science.

What the Government did in response to NPHET's letter was to move immediately to level 3. Level 3 is a very severe form of restrictions. It essentially closes down our entire hospitality sector, including pubs, restaurants and hotels, bar a few exceptional provisions.

In the context of the European stringency index, before we made our announcement last evening, Ireland was number one in terms of the level of restrictions. That was because we moved to level 3 two weeks ago. We added to that with the single-household provision and further restrictions in Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan.

The Deputy said I held up an appalling vista. I do not agree with him on zero Covid and NPHET does not either. The Deputy clearly rejects NPHET's advice on zero Covid but it has been very clear to us that it does not believe that the zero-Covid approach is credible, doable or implementable. The Deputy should not underestimate the impact on human lives, as well as the cost to people, that would result from such a measure. This is not an exact science; it is difficult and challenging and one has to balance a whole range of considerations. It needs to be given deep consideration. It cannot be the case anymore that we move from one level to another on one night on receipt of a letter. The day is over where someone gets a letter on day one and we do something by midnight. There has to be some degree of consideration and other inputs. I agreed with Deputy Shortall earlier - I did not get a chance to reply - when she spoke about bringing in a broader range of people. There are 40 individuals on NPHET but we need other Departments to have an input.

Child welfare referral rates decreased sharply during the lockdown, and that is a danger. Domestic violence increased significantly during the lockdown. That is also an issue. These are all issues that cannot be dismissed. As we go through this pandemic, we will learn more and, hopefully, be able to refine how we do things. NPHET informed us on Saturday that if we work with this for six weeks, we can get to a position, hopefully by the beginning of December, where we can reopen but that, in the new year, we might have to consider more restrictions again to keep control of the virus until we get hold of a vaccine . NPHET believes that is a better and more credible pathway than the zero-Covid or herd immunity pathways.

We have heard about the Thursday letter, level 3 and so on before. I will quote from the letter of 4 October. It states: "A graduated approach would, ultimately, result in application of Level 5 measures as mitigation." NPHET predicted precisely where we are. It is important, to learn lessons for the future, that the Government acknowledge that the advice to move to level 5, two and a bit weeks ago, was correct and that it made a serious mistake by refusing to follow it. I do not care what other parties in this House advocated; NPHET was clear. It has been vindicated and the Government damaged the public health advice in general by taking the approach it did.

Judging by the way the Taoiseach talks about the matter, it is as if those who advocate a zero-Covid approach are pro-lockdown. We are not pro-lockdown. Everybody, surely, is anti-lockdown. Nobody wants to be in a lockdown, but we are going into a lockdown on Wednesday night with the Government's strategy of supposed suppression and managing the virus, which offers a continual yo-yo, into lockdown, out of lockdown, into lockdown, out of lockdown. That is a nightmare for people.

The alternative, zero Covid, can be achieved. In New Zealand at the weekend, there were scenes of people living normally, but it is not just in New Zealand. Countries as diverse as Iceland, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and Australia have all implemented versions of the zero-Covid strategy. That is what we need to do in order to give people some hope. I encourage the Taoiseach and the Government to implement that strategy.

I am sort of taken aback by the Deputy's enthusiasm for the statist approaches in some Asian countries towards controlling populations but that is another debate. Asian countries are doing well and I think that is because of the experience with severe acute respiratory syndrome, SARS, and the fact they use their police and a much stronger state apparatus for contact tracing and so on. They learned a great deal from the SARS epidemic and the West, perhaps, was behind in that regard.

Zero Covid does mean lockdown. The Deputy should not try to have it every which way.

Both ways mean lockdown now-----

No, they do not-----

-----but the question is the future.

The Deputy knows that New Zealand is not Ireland. Our geographical location, in my view, makes zero Covid not credible and very difficult to implement. We are not in a position to seal the Border, nor would we want to.

Second, we have historically a very close relationship with Great Britain. Families travel to and fro. Surely they are not going to seal that border. We are part of the EU and an outward economy and society. I do not know if the Deputy picked up on some of the columns written by our own journalists in Europe. Naomi O'Leary wrote a good one for The Irish Times just prior to the weekend on the Irish living in Europe and working for the State or Irish companies. Are they ever to come home again? The Deputy's zero-Covid strategy would have them marooned for a long time to come.

They could quarantine.

Quarantine is not going to happen to the degree people suggest. It is just not. Our geographic location and connectivity makes zero Covid, in my view, not capable of implementation. I believe NPHET share that view. The Chief Medical Officer and deputy CMO have heard this and the people who put this forward are serious people. I am not ridiculing or undermining people but I genuinely do not believe it is a credible proposition for us as a country to seal ourselves off - and it does mean that. The alternative strategy is herd immunity. I do not think anybody is advocating that.