I wish to ask the Government to open up construction for all those who have not been working for the past four or five months. I wish to ask the Taoiseach respectfully to increase the numbers who can go into a church for a funeral mass. I ask him to take into consideration size and height and capacity of places such as cathedrals and big churches and to increase the numbers.

Fr. Gearóid Walsh was on our local radio last week and he said that we have a professor for everything, but no professor or position has been created for a person with common sense. I sympathise and empathise with the McCarthy family from Gneeveguilla, and particularly with Mr. Jack McCarthy who lost his wonderful wife, Mary Theresa, yesterday. There are around 100 members of that family. I do not know how they are going to manage, but I do not envy the person deciding who the ten people to go to the funeral will be.

I want to go on to construction. For too long now some construction workers cannot go to work. Those involved in social housing can go to work. It is very galling for some people, when Tim can go to work, but Tom and Mike cannot go to work because they are not working in social housing. Not everyone is able to get on the social housing list and people need houses. Some people want to build their own houses and they should be allowed to finish them.

We have to recognise that English recruitment companies are looking for skilled workers of all types, including carpenters, plumbers and drivers. Flannery Plant Hire is advertising every week for 360° excavator drivers and drivers of dumper trucks and different vehicles to work on the HS2 rail project in England, which is the biggest job since the Channel Tunnel. If the Taoiseach does not believe me, he can get the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, while he still has him, to look on Twitter - he is good on Facebook - to check all that is happening in that line. Surely they should work together and see that, and they are looking for women as well in case that the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, is listening in to us. You see-----

I thank the Deputy, but his time is up. We must go to the Taoiseach. During Leaders' Questions, we are meant to deal with only one topic and not two.

There is no time up on the screen.

Yes, I have the time here in front of me, so the Deputy is all right and he should not worry.

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. In his overall presentation, he was essentially dealing with the negative impact that Covid-19 has had on all our lives, including in such areas as attending mass or other religious services, in construction and in other areas of life. The virus has upended our lives. It has not been the Government, the Dáil or the Oireachtas, but the virus. The problem now is that we have a virulent form of that virus in the B.1.1.7 variant, which is the dominant variant in the country. We need to be very careful in how we deal with that variant in respect of restrictions etc.

That is why in the next number of days we will spend much time talking and getting the epidemiological data. I am conscious that in the last several days the numbers of cases of Covid-19 have gone up, bar yesterday. Everybody in this House needs to take that on board and interrogate it. It is serious. We are rolling out the vaccination programme and we will have far more vaccines in the second quarter. Over 700,000 doses have been administered now and that is an important point. As we move through April in particular, we will have far more people vaccinated.

On funerals, I understand and accept fully the sincerity of the Deputy's presentation. I think it is terrible myself. Not being able to attend the funeral of a loved one is the one aspect of Covid-19 which hits people the hardest. The numbers of people who can attend funerals are very low. We will look at that. We have been asked by the churches to look at it. I am not giving any commitments or guarantees in relation to it because we want to protect people. Unfortunately, some events at some funerals, a minority, have led to a spread of the virus, not in the churches, it must be said, but at subsequent events. There have been very significant outbreaks related to funerals, unfortunately. Hence, the extreme caution and the regulations which have been put in place relating to funerals.

On construction, the evidence was that general mobility will give rise to the spread of this variant. I remember back in January when we had 2,000 people in hospital. At that time, everyone here was into suppressing the virus, into zero Covid and the prevailing mood in the Chamber was let us never open again given the extraordinary pressure that was on our hospitals and front-line healthcare workers. I did say at the time that I knew it would not be too long before Deputies would be coming back saying we should open this and that. I understand that, but we are dealing with a very transmissible variant and that is something we need to take on board. It is not the Government or anybody that is trying to stop people going back building. The Government wants a housing programme. It is our number one priority for us socially in respect of building more homes, but this virus, and this variant of it, is upending the best laid plans and most of all the quality of people's lives.

I thank the Taoiseach, but his time really is up and we must go back to Deputy Danny Healy-Rae.

I respect the problem that the Taoiseach and the Government has. The problem though is we are not getting the figures down and if that is to continue, the Government will have to be sensible and allow sectors of the community to open and to work. The Government must trust people. People working on farm buildings can keep away from each other, as can people working on building a rural one-off house or a small estate.

Other groups, such as small traders and shopkeepers, are also under severe pressure from multinational companies trading online. They will never be able to open up if this thing goes too far, and I am afraid that it is. Let us take hairdressers as an example. When they were allowed to open, they were very careful to just allow one person in at a time. We must be sensible and trust people to work. If this continues, I do not know who or what is going to pay for it. Are we going to lose all our workers to England?

I thank Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, but his time is up. I call the Taoiseach to conclude on this matter.

There was one week in January when we had 42,000 cases, in one seven-day period, and 2,000 people in hospital. In the last seven days we have had approximately 3,800 cases and today we have about 329 people in hospital. I ask the Deputy please to stop saying that the figures are not coming down. That is killing people saying that. It is telling people that their efforts are not working. The efforts and sacrifices that people have made have worked against a very virulent, dangerous and transmissible virus. We have got the numbers down quite dramatically because of our efforts. Meanwhile, we are also vaccinating more and more people. We have vaccinated the most vulnerable in our society, which is also working. Serial testing in nursing homes is yielding a positivity rate of 0.18%. That is how much the vaccines are working where they have been administered. It is likewise with our front-line healthcare workers, where the vaccines have also worked. That is the parallel process on which we must work.

Believe me, I understand fully where Deputy Danny Healy-Rae is coming from. Economically, however, it has been proved all over the world that the more effort there is to try to keep pressure on the virus, the better will be the result in the medium to long term. The variant is a real problem. That is all I am saying to the Deputy. This variant just takes off, if it is given a chance.