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Seanad
‹ An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

Taiwan, WHO and level 5 review

Summary

Senator Buttimer supported Taiwan's participation in the WHO and called for a debate on the next NPHET decision on level 5 restrictions. Senator McGreehan and Senator Conway both echoed support for Taiwan, changing-place facilities, and a cautious approach to easing Covid rules.

I join Members in asking that we support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization. Lawmakers in most European countries are in favour of Taiwan joining the WHO. It makes no sense, if we are collectively trying to defeat Covid-19, that Taiwan cannot participate in the WHO. I urge the House and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to lend Ireland's support to its participation.

I ask the Cathaoirleach and Leader to arrange a debate on the forthcoming decision of NPHET on moving from level 5 to a different level, whatever it may be. It is important we have a debate on moving from level 5, including on issues such as places of worship. I support Senator Dooley's remarks this morning on rural pursuits, be it coursing or pheasant shooting. That is an issue we need to look at. It is important we have an informed and meaningful debate on how we can collectively address and live with Covid-19. We, as parliamentarians, must have a role and a say in that debate and contribute to public discourse on living with level 5. In particular it is important we stand with our hospitality sector which has suffered enormously as a result of Covid-19, especially small restaurants and coffee shops in many of our cities and towns. If we move to level 3, small and medium enterprise owners must be given an opportunity to pursue indoor dining.

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I echo Senator Wall's call for more changing places, toilets and facilities. He is dead right that the northern part of this country does these things an awful lot better than we do and we need to improve. It would be remiss of me, as a Member of this House and proud County Louth woman, not to mention our proud son, Joe Biden. I must also take umbrage at the fact that County Mayo is getting ownership of all his genetics when we all know the Biden clan came from Owen Finnegan and Ms Kearney from Templetown in Cooley. We must be very proud of our son, or perhaps cousin, Mr. Biden, and hope we can welcome him home as President of the United States. I fully agree with Senator Martin on the importance of democracy and how we work on, encourage and improve our democracy.

In light of Brexit, which I think is only 49 days away, I ask the Leader that we have a debate on an all-Ireland economy post Brexit. We need to ensure the Northern Government and the Government here work to create a Border economic zone in light of Brexit. North County Louth, Dundalk, the Newry and Mourne district and the entire Border region, North and South, are going to suffer. I would appreciate a debate on how we are going to support both sides of the Border after Brexit.

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I join colleagues in calling on the Minister for Foreign Affairs to engage with the World Health Organization in support of Taiwan. It is a most hospitable country and one which does its business right, as we see in its record in dealing with the Covid-19 crisis. We can all learn a thing or two from it.

Speaking of Covid-19, I hear Members calling for exemptions for various activities and many of the cases they are making are strong. However, I suggest that there will not be any changes or any further dilution for the next four weeks of level 5. It is appropriate that we look at how to deal with any future level 5 lockdowns because even if a vaccine is developed, I suspect unfortunately that we will be moving into further phases of level 4 or 5 restrictions in the first half of 2021. As for rebuilding or economy, it is fair to say that the Cathaoirleach's county and my county would have seen tourism kick-start their economies after the last recession. Between 2010 and 2013 in particular, we saw the tourism numbers grow. We saw hundreds of thousands of people working in tourism when there were not jobs in other sectors of society. I earnestly believe tourism will be the first industry that will kick-start our recovery. With that in mind, I suggest to the Leader that we have a considered debate on tourism with the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media in the not too distant future. We need to invest in gold-plated tourist facilities across the country. In addition, each county should have at least one gold-plated facility like we in County Clare have with the Cliffs of Moher visitor experience. We also need to develop silver-plated facilities because people will come to the area for a day, visit the Cliffs of Moher and then leave. We want to keep them in the area for two or three days. We need to invest in other facilities that would feed from the gold-plated facilities.

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