There's a growing feeling that the Government is trying to control the people rather than the pandemic.
When our leaders are hanging on to emergency powers used to confine the public to their homes and preventing overseas travel we should not be concerned, we should be terrified.
Emergency? What emergency? There are certainly public health issues, but there’s no emergency.
With talk of the pandemic payments being phased out from October why are the emergency powers not being scrapped at the same time, or even earlier?
The Health Minister’s decision to extend until next November what are some of the most restrictive measures ever enacted in peacetime sets a dangerous precedent.
Worse still, there is a provision that the restrictions can be rolled over until next February, meaning they will have been in force for nearly two years.
So much for normality being just around the corner or is a quasi-police state the new norm?
While the vaccines are rolling out it seems the restrictions are rolling on.
The fact the Bill to extend emergency powers was introduced through the Senate this week to avoid it being scrutinised should add to concerns.
It is now reaching a stage where even those who initially gave their full support to the restrictions, myself included, have had it with nonsensical rules that increasingly appear designed to control society rather than the spread of Covid-19.
Some of the ludicrous new hospitality regulations, especially the 105-minute meal (which replaced the €9 one) and the 11.30pm curfew is straight from the nanny state cookbook.
The public should be rewarded for the huge sacrifices made over the last 15 months by scrapping the draconian restrictions due to expire on June 9.
Instead the Government is sending out the message that the most severe restrictions in Europe are still needed because the people can’t be trusted when, in reality, it is the politicians whose word means nothing.
Despite reassurances that these restrictive measures are only temporary, once ministers have increased powers they are reluctant to let them go as we know only too well to our cost.
Cast your mind back to the dark days of 2010 when the banks and Fianna Fail brought the country to its knees and the government needed a quick financial fix.
In December of that year the then Finance Minister Brian Lenihan gave the public a Christmas present that would last a lifetime – the Universal Social Charge.
The taxpayer was led to believe this was an emergency and temporary measure rushed through to get the country through a self-inflicted financial crisis.
We might have known this doggie was not just for Christmas, it was for life and now we have a second tier of income tax and a whole litter of other levies that were supposed to be short-term. There are many who suspect that these restrictions are being kept alive so they can be used against those who attempt to leave the country without being fully vaccinated.
Should that happen, we could have the insane situation where those being banned from flying out on holiday look on as thousands of seasonal workers fly in from Eastern Europe and travel to fruit farms around the country.
Indeed as Brussels loosens travel restrictions, there could soon be a scenario where visitors from outside the EU are flocking here while Irish EU citizens are barred from leaving their own country.
Then again, that has been the case until recently.
While the Health Minister has told the Dail emergency pandemic measures – including additional powers for the gardai – will only need to be extended “for a very short time” they should be allowed to lapse on June 9.
If new restrictions are required they can be passed in the Dail if sanctioned by our elected representatives.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties has warned it is “deeply concerned” at extending these powers into next winter.
Its executive director Liam Herrick, along with many others, does not see “any justification” for the Health Minister retaining “unlimited” emergency powers.
Unless, of course, the Government expects to use the increased garda powers when the PUP money runs out in October.
