Pat Sheehan
West Belfast · Sinn Féin · Northern Ireland
“I thank the Member for giving way. Does she agree that the Minister's School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill was poor legislation and a missed opportunity?”
“The last point that you made reminded me of one of the witnesses — a young girl — who came to the Committee. During the winter, she wore her own overcoat, but she had to take it off 100 yards from the school gate because she was not allowed to wear it into the school.”
“Agus iad ag ullmhú le haghaidh scrúduithe GCSE agus ard-leibhéil, féadann an imní agus an éiginnteacht sin drochthionchar a imirt ar a n-oideachas agus ar a bhfolláine.”
“Is scannalach go deo an foréigean ciníoch a chonaic muid le seachtain anuas. Tá ionsaithe ar theaghlaigh, ar thithe agus ar ghnólachtaí doleithscéil, agus tá siad dochosanta. Níor cheart eagla a mbáis a bheith ar dhaoine neamhurchóideacha mar gheall ar a gcine, a gcúlra ná a gcreideamh.”
“One of the reasons, Daniel, is that, if we were to have blocked the Bill at the Executive, the SDLP would be saying tomorrow morning "This place is dysfunctional. You're blocking legislation. Sinn Féin is blocking legislation, and the DUP is blocking legislation". No, we are not blocking legislation.”
“I have not once today argued against inspections. Not once. The Bill is about one thing and one thing only: intimidating and punishing teachers.”
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“That is the type of contract that we are in. <BR /> <BR />I want to deal first with scrutiny, because that seems to be an important theme to be discussed today. The fact is that we have not been able to provide proper scrutiny, or the scrutiny that we would like to provide under normal circumstances, but we do not live in normal circumstances. These types of regulations are rushed. They are made in haste. Sometimes, there will be mistakes, and, sometimes, there are mistakes in drafting. There are other problems with them. They arrive late. In my view, it does not really matter which Committee does the scrutiny, because we are all going to face the same problems. The Chair of the Justice Committee outlined what he would like to do in the circumstances, and, as Paula pointed out, that is just not possible.”
“I suppose that we have been here before. It is a bit like Groundhog Day when these regulations arrive on the Floor of the Assembly, and it becomes a bit of a blur sometimes, so if I get a bit confused, a Cheann Comhairle, about the regulations that I am talking about, forgive me for meandering a bit off the topic. I will do my best to focus on the regulations. <BR /> <BR />Some of the regulations that we are dealing with now have already been superseded, but, irrespective of what we are dealing with today, we have to look on all of the regulations that we have dealt with as part of a contract with the population. We ask them to abide by these regulations, and, in turn, they expect us to do our best to protect their life and to ensure that our health and social care system does not get overwhelmed.”
“The Minister will be well aware of Sinn Féin's position on academic selection and the rejection of children. Participation in those tests should not be equated with support for them. Often, sitting those tests is the only way that children can get into a school that is nearest to their home. <BR /> <BR />What alternatives is the Minister considering to post-primary transfer this year in the context of COVID-19, absences from school, self-isolation and mental health issues?”
“— amend part B of the coronavirus business support scheme, which would ensure that taxi drivers and coach operators get additional payments.”
“I must say that I am very disappointed with that answer. Taxi drivers in particular, who, under normal circumstances, work long and antisocial hours for little recompense, have been left behind in the pandemic. It took a long, long time to launch the Department for Infrastructure scheme.”
“Would it not also be an encouragement for some people to wear masks if they were made freely available? These masks are sometimes not inexpensive, especially the disposable ones. If they were made freely available, more people might be more likely to wear them.”
“Certainly, a LeasCheann Comhairle. It is important that we have that fallback situation in case there are any delays with a vaccine.”
“I welcome the Minister's acknowledgement yesterday that I have some expertise in that field.”
“Clarity is also needed on where the vaccine is going to be delivered. We already heard talk about leisure centres being used for mass testing. Perhaps GAA clubs or other sports premises, where a lot of people would be confident about going for their jab, could be used as needs be. All those things are important. <BR /> <BR />Hopefully, the vaccine will be here soon. I do not have a lot of confidence in this British Government if they are behind providing and delivering the vaccine here. They have made an absolute hames of everything that they have done concerning the pandemic so far. I hope that they get it right on this occasion, that we get the vaccine soon and that we get our whole population vaccinated. In the meantime, we need to be sure that we have a proper contact-tracing system.”
“Will it be community pharmacists, who were saying recently that they are at the ready to deliver it if they are needed? Will it be paramedics, district nurses and nurses in hospitals delivering it to staff, patients and so on? All of that detail needs to be clarified.”
“I could not agree more. That is the type of question that the Minister is going to have to answer at some stage. There is the broader question of who is going to get the vaccine, and then there is the question of at what stage it will be delivered to them. <BR /> <BR />There is another question: who is going to deliver the vaccine? I do not want to make a political point here, but some of the Members who are advocating the use of the British military to roll out the vaccine are trying to make some sort of political point. I do not envisage the British military being on the Falls Road giving out a vaccine for the virus. That is not realistic. We have enough people, and that part of the action plan that the Minister is going to roll out will need to say who will be administering the vaccine. Will it be GPs?”
“I beg your pardon. I was getting carried away there. As I said, I will be taking the vaccine and my children will be taking the vaccine. I will be encouraging everyone to take the vaccine, because that is what we need. <BR /> <BR />One of the questions that we must ask about an action plan, which, I hope, we are going to see more detail on over the coming weeks, is this: who is going to get the vaccine? We understand that the most vulnerable should get the vaccine first, but then where will the vaccine be delivered? Whom will it go to? Will it be care homes, of course, then the over-70s, then the over-60s and so on?”
“We have a vaccine coming to deal with the virus. We know, and this has been mentioned by a number of Members, how much vaccines have advanced the cause of medicine in the past 100 years. According to the World Health Organization, 28 diseases can be treated, and in some cases almost eradicated, by the use of vaccines, including diphtheria, hepatitis A, B and E, measles, meningitis, polio, rubella, TB, yellow fever and whooping cough. The list goes on. When the virus becomes available, I will certainly be taking it and my children will be taking it.”
“This virus has turned all of our lives upside down, and not just here. On the face of the planet, there is barely a country that has not been badly affected by the advent of this new virus. Here, it has shone a light on the inadequacies of our health service as a result of years of underfunding. As we come out of this, and hopefully as the vaccine brings an end to the crisis that we are in, I hope that there will be a complete review of the funding of our health service so that, in the event of any future pandemic of this nature, it will be ready to deal with it. The virus has also shone a light on the health inequalities in our society. As usual, those on the margins are the ones who have been the most adversely affected by the pandemic. <BR /> <BR />Those are issues for the future. The immediate future, hopefully, is bright.”
“Will the Minister give an assessment of how her Department has been affected this year by virtue of the fact that many staff have been absent as a result of COVID-19?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a freagraí. I thank the Minister for her answers. Many people are waiting for driving tests, Minister, and a lot of them depend on their car for essential travel. How many tests per week do the DVA anticipate doing when services resume? How long will it take for the backlog to be cleared?”
“I was getting a bit ahead of myself. I meant to say "this week" rather than "today".”
“I want to pick up on the issue of borders and border checks. Does the joint First Minister share my concern about the uncertainty facing cross-border workers in the context of Brexit?”
“That is an issue with contact tracing. The Minister knows my views well on that. I will just leave it there rather than drift off further on the issue. <BR /> <BR />I have one final question for the Minister, to which many people out there need to know the answer: when will the Executive announce what the situation will look like post 11 December? I advise the Executive that, rather than leave it to the last minute, and us all end up on the cliff edge as we did during the past number of weeks, an announcement should be made here today about what the situation will look like after 11 December.”
“However, there are compliance and enforcement issues about these restrictions and restrictions in general. Without wishing to stray off the focus of the amendments, a good example of "compliance" and "enforcement" issues was shown on last week's 'Spotlight' programme about the contact-tracing system in Wales. When contacts were traced by the contact tracers, they were followed up with phone calls. If they did not answer the phone during their period of isolation, contact tracers called to their homes. Essentially, the rationale for calling to their homes was to see whether the person who was isolating needed support. However, I am sure that everyone can easily imagine that there is an element of enforcement there too, because, if the person who was supposed to be isolating was not there, that raised further issues.”
“<BR /> <BR />Another issue that we should all welcome — it has been welcomed by a number of Members — is the clarification around physical education in schools. We came in for some ridicule around the issue of PE in schools when the legislation was first mooted. Clarification was absolutely necessary, and I welcome that. We had a ridiculous situation where fewer students could take part in outdoor physical education than were allowed indoors in the classroom. That issue needed to be rectified, and, thankfully, it was. <BR /> <BR />I do not intend to go on for much longer today, a Phríomh-LeasCheann Comhairle, you will be glad to hear.”
“I say to the Minister that I have been banging on about the necessity of wearing masks from as far back as late March and early April. The evidence that was mounting, particularly in other countries, and the science that was coming to the fore told us that the wearing of masks reduced transmission, and I am glad to see that we implemented legislation to make it mandatory to wear face masks in certain circumstances. That is good, but there is an issue — my colleague raised it earlier — about the cost of face masks. We have seen that, in many other countries, face masks are free for the population. The Minister should consider making face masks available free of charge, at least in some circumstances.”
“Some of those people may be brilliant musicians, fantastic chefs or people who can run great hospitality businesses, but I would love to see their credentials on public health and dealing with pandemics. I say to everyone that we have a difficult job. Some people are more concerned about their own narrow interests, but political leaders have to take account of society in general, the needs of all of our citizens, the need to protect our health service, the need to save people's lives and the need to stop people becoming ill. Those are issues in the context of the restrictions, even today's restrictions, that we need to be cognisant of. <BR /> <BR />One of the amendments that we are dealing with today is around the issue of masks.”
“Unfortunately, clinicians have to make ethical decisions on who should be treated first. However, basically, the restrictions are in place to protect life, to try to reduce the rate of transmission, to protect our front-line workers and to protect society in general. <BR /> <BR />Drafting legislation is not easy at the best of times, but it is all the more difficult when all this legislation comes at us in haste and we do not have time for the usual scrutiny that would take place. It is inevitable that anomalies will sometimes appear, mistakes will be made and clarification will be needed. However, it is disappointing when some prominent people speak out angrily and, sometimes their language is, maybe, not as diplomatic as it ought to be. If we were using similar language, we would be castigated from the high heavens.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. We have been here before and have covered a lot of ground. <BR /> <BR />I always think that it is important to contextualise why the restrictions are needed. The simple reason is that we need to protect our health and social care system. We cannot allow it to be overwhelmed in the face of the pandemic. Years of underinvestment in the health system have meant that we do not have the capacity that we might like to have to deal with the upsurge in the number of people who become ill as a result of the pandemic. It should never be the case that groups of people with one illness are pitted against groups of people with another illness. The fact is that there are people who are ill and they have to be treated.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis inniu. I thank the Minister for her statement today. Will the Minister tell us when we can expect to see a business plan for 2021 and a corporate plan for the 2020-22 period?”
“I take the Minister at his word, and I always have. However, I want to see some outline of the plan for how it will be rolled out and who will be responsible for doing the vaccination. To have confidence, we need to see the plan. I know that I got a bit passionate about the PHA but, after its contact-tracing performance, I have absolutely no confidence in it.”
“As the Minister said, rapid testing will not lead to a reduction in the short term if community transmission is high, and I agree with that. That is why we need to beef up substantially the number of contact tracers that we have, because if we can do rapid testing, it will throw up more positive cases, and we need more contact tracers to trace the people they have been in contact with. <BR /> <BR />A Cheann Comhairle, I got quite excited here today about this, but it exasperates me when there is a lack of ambition in the way that we are approaching it, and that needs to change.”
“It is that lack of ambition that frustrates and exasperates people, and it frustrates and exasperates people like me in the Committee when I am asking simple questions of the chief executive of the PHA, who is a highly paid official, and she cannot or will not answer them. <BR /> <BR />Let me say this, Minister: when it comes to rolling out the vaccine, I would like to see at least a skeleton strategy here within the next few weeks, because if it is left to the PHA, somebody will need to put a rocket up its backside or we will be talking here this time next year about a strategy to roll out a vaccine that could not be done because we did not have enough people to do it or we had this problem or that problem. <BR /> <BR />Those are the issues that we face.”
“The ECDC says that, outside of a lockdown situation, each positive coronavirus case will produce between seven and 20 contacts. That amounts to between 7,000 and 20,000 contacts. How could 88 people do that? They could not. It is impossible. There is a lack of transparency and openness on this, because the PHA was out again saying that there are now 250 contact tracers. What does that mean in full-time equivalents? Somebody could be working part-time for six hours a week. <BR /> <BR />It was mentioned that Germany has a target for tracers per capita that equates to us having 250. If we benchmark with Wuhan in China, we will need 1,000. We certainly do not need 88. We need a high number of contact tracers to get out and find the people who are positive. They can then isolate, and we will not have to lock down the whole of society.”
“Absolutely. I was going to come on to my experience of dealing with the PHA, which is responsible for the contact tracing. On 16 April, the chief executive told the Committee that 500 people were being trained to carry out contact tracing. She appeared at the Committee three weeks later, and when she was asked how that training was going, she tried to avoid the question, but when she was confronted with her own words from Hansard, she had to admit that she had spoken "out of turn". <BR /> <BR />She appeared again at the Committee on 15 October and said that there were 151 contact tracers. When she was asked to quantify that in full-time equivalents, she either could not or would not. She did not have the answer. It now transpires that there are, apparently, 88. At that time, we were getting nearly 1,000 positive cases a day.”
“They are out and about in society, unwittingly spreading the virus, so we need to trace them.”
“However, it is exactly that: they had experience. The experience is there, so let us learn from it. I am very disappointed that, when I question officials in the Committee and ask them if anyone in the Department had been in contact with any of the countries that have been able to keep their economy open and suppress the virus at the same time, the answer is, "No, we have not". <BR /> <BR />We have a number of weapons in our armoury to fight the virus. We cannot defeat it, but, hopefully, when the vaccine comes, we will be able to do that. In the meantime, we need to look to non-pharmaceutical options. Find, test, trace, isolate and support is the gold standard. Why do we need to find? Depending on the research that you look at, between 50% and 66% of those who get the virus are asymptomatic. They are the most dangerous ones.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. Unfortunately, the narrative around the pandemic has degenerated into a binary choice between those who favour restrictions and those who want to open up. <BR /> <BR />I am leaving aside the tinfoil hat brigade, the science deniers, the conspiracy theorists and the crackpots, who, unfortunately, seem to be given equal validity when debating this issue. The fact is that there is clear evidence that there is another option. Some countries have been able to keep their economies open and suppress the virus at the same time. That is what we should be aspiring to: the gold standard, not the bargain basement. That is how we should be thinking. There should be ambition and lateral thinking. Some people say, "These countries had previous experience of MERS and SARS", as if that is a negative.”
“Minister, two weeks ago, the DUP vetoed public health advice and created a sense of confusion among the business classes about whether it would be safe to open. Does she accept that the entirely inappropriate use of a cross-community veto created unnecessary confusion and uncertainty among businesses and wider society?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a freagra. I thank the Minister for her answer. Will she tell us what areas have been identified as having the highest need?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as an ráiteas seo ar maidin. I thank the Minister for his statement. The new restrictions are absolutely necessary. It is a pity that they were not implemented a bit sooner, but we are where we are. It is important that those who need financial support during these restrictions, receive it, and receive it quickly. In October, there was an announcement that £27 million would be made available to care homes for the care partnership arrangements. Will the Minister confirm that none of that funding has yet made its way to care homes?”
“I believe that amendment No 12, which amends child cruelty legislation to make it explicitly clear that abuse can be non-physical, is important, because it will engage the UNCRC much more meaningfully and provide much greater safeguards for children who may be subject to abuse. The amendment will make it clear that it is an offence to cause suffering or injury to a child, be it physical or psychological in nature; for example, isolation, humiliation or bullying. That goes further than provisions in legislation in all other jurisdictions of these islands, and that is to be commended.”
“More specifically, I want to draw attention to paragraph 1 of article 3 of the UNCRC, which states:”
“It is my view and that of my party that, quite clearly, abuse, be it domestic abuse or child abuse, is not limited to physical abuse. It is important that all victims of abuse are afforded the same protections from non-physical abuse. <BR /> <BR />Such abuse has a stark, damaging and lasting impact on a child, and such adverse childhood experiences — they are known as "ACEs" — can lead to serious damage to a person's life. ACEs are a growing topic in academic and political discourse due to the increasing awareness of the impact that they can have on a child in later life, including mental health issues, addiction issues, educational, social and economic inequalities and more. <BR /> <BR />The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child must be the baseline used when making decisions on protecting children.”
“I recognise that organisations raised some issues about the parental responsibility exception, specifically the question of whether existing child protection legislation provided adequate protection for child victims of non-physical abuse. That was raised by organisations such as the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Victim Support, Barnardo's, the NSPCC, Women's Aid, the Children's Law Centre and many others, and I thank them all for their important contributions. It is directly because of those important contributions to the discourse on the Bill that the Department of Justice decided, in consultation with officials from the Department of Health, to amend the Bill to provide for more explicit protections for children.”
“I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate. I was on the Justice Committee when Claire Sugden was Minister, and I was on it when the institutions were resurrected earlier this year. I have since moved on. The issues that I want to deal with overlap with Health. It is clear that there are overlaps in the Bill between the realms of Justice and Health. That is most apparent in clauses 9, 11 and 17, which deal with the child aggravator and the exception to the aggravation where the perpetrator has parental responsibility over a child.”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis. I thank the Minister for his statement this morning. What actions have been taken to protect projects and programme expenditure during the COVID pandemic?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a fhreagra. I thank the Minister for taking the question. I am surprised to hear him say that the story that was broken by a reputable journalist this morning is not true, because there has been other evidence of difficulties with the roll-out of the vaccine. The Minister mentioned the pauses, and his colleague on the Health Committee told us some weeks ago that there was a delay in the roll-out of the school vaccination programme. There are issues. Confidence in the PHA is not at a premium at the moment given its woeful underestimation of the number of positive COVID cases, so can the Minister explain why he is so confident — he answered a question from my colleague Órlaithí Flynn — that everyone who needs a vaccine or wants a vaccine will get it in a timely fashion?”
“Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht a ráitis. I thank the Minister for her statement. I wonder whether she can tell us what she thinks the political fallout will be from the Executive's decision last week.”
“Will the Minister give an update on the establishment of a fiscal commission that would consider the Executive's ability to raise revenue for public services?”
“It is important to point out that, when the chief executive of the PHA attended the Health Committee a few weeks ago, she initially told us that the modelling had been carried out by Ian Young, the Chief Scientific Adviser, and his team. She then recanted that for some reason. She said that the modelling estimated that the maximum number of positive cases would be 300 and that was the basis on which the PHA had recruited contact tracers. Now, we were getting 1,000 cases a day at that time. The numbers whom the PHA was thinking of recruiting were a serious underestimation, even for 300, but, given that we were getting 1,000 positive cases a day, as I said, the sums did not add up. It was a woeful underestimation of what was coming at us.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Member is insinuating that the Health Minister at the time of Exercise Cygnus had knowledge of the results of or the report from that simulation of a pandemic. In fact, the details were not made public until after she had left office.”
“I thank the Member for giving way. That is exactly my point: those countries have vast experience of SARS, MERS, swine flu, avian flu and all the rest of it. They were prepared to put in place everything that was needed. There were lockdowns in some of those countries, but, in others, there were only localised lockdowns and so on. We are not the same as those countries, but we can certainly learn from them. Let us take the best examples and the best practice that they have used to try to get our situation under control.”
“Let us think of some other way of tackling this, and let us look to international best practice, because others have been much more successful than we have been.”