Legislation

Dear Editor,

The restrictions that have been placed on Irish society and on society throughout the world over the last 2 years have been extremely damaging to say the least. They have damaged society in many ways, including financially, physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.

The damage which has been done is enormous and will take many years to repair, if it can ever be repaired. The benefits from having had these restrictions are very difficult to see because there literally are no benefits.

We can see this more evidently as every day passes, by studying the countries and states in the world who did not implement such strict restrictions, examples being Sweden in Europe, most countries in Africa and many states in the USA. We can see that these countries and states not only did just as well as countries who implemented severe Covid-19 restrictions, but actually for the most part did better. Unfortunately in life we cannot change the past, but we can learn from it and use it to change the present and future.

Whilst the most of the Covid-19 restrictions in this country have been lifted, the legislation is still in place to bring back any restriction at any time, if so wished by the government. This includes the discriminatory vaccine pass. This legislation is due to expire on March 31st, 2022 unless voted to be extended again by members of the Oireachtas. Emergency legislation must only be used when there actually is an emergency and there is no emergency now, so there cannot be any justification whatsoever for extending this legislation. We cannot keep this legislation in place because there might be an emergency. There always might be an emergency!

We must tell our TDs who represent us in Dáil Eireann, that we do not want these “Covid19 Emergency powers” left hanging over us indefinitely. We must tell them we want them abolished immediately. We must tell them that we want to return to some form of freedom and democracy once more.

We have four TDs representing the constituents of East Cork. They are Sean Sherlock, Pat Buckley, David Stanton and James O’Connor. As many as possible of us must contact them now and tell them enough is enough. We must tell them we don’t ever want to go back to the restrictions that have done us so much damage. We must tell them to vote no to extending the “Covid-19 emergency powers” if such a vote should take place.

Thanking you, Peter O’Donoghue, Kilworth.