Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 December 2021
83. Deputy Louise O'Reilly asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he or his Department have had engagements with business groups or trade unions regarding the new Covid-19 public health restrictions since they were announced on 3 December 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [61087/21]
View answerThis is a fairly straightforward question. The Tánaiste said that he did not believe that restrictions were going to come in on Wednesday. They came in on Friday and there was a great deal of confusion with regard to sectors which thought that they would never have to take a backward step when they had to take that step. My question is about the amount of interaction that there has been, not just with the sector representatives, but also with the worker representatives in this space.
I thank the Deputy. I think I said I was sceptical as to the need for additional restrictions, particularly ones that would impact on family life and businesses and so on. I will maintain a healthy scepticism around that as Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. I hate to see any business being closed or restricted. As Minister for employment I very much hate to see anyone being laid off specially for the second or third time. As a politician who believes in personal freedom and liberty I hate to see people’s individual freedoms or family life being restricted by Government in any way. Sometimes it is necessary. Any time we impose restrictions on people and business we need to ask questions. Where is the evidence? Will this work? Are there alternatives? That is my responsibility and I will continue to do so, particularly if further restrictions are proposed in the weeks ahead.
The new instructions that were announced on Friday were a bitter pill and a deep disappointment to all of us. They were a body blow in particular for sectors like hospitality, the arts, events, entertainment and leisure which rely on December to see them through other parts of the year. On Monday, the Taoiseach, the Ministers, Deputies Michael McGrath and Catherine Martin, and I met with representatives of the hospitality entertainment and arts sectors. The meeting included representatives of business bodies and also of trade unions. At each point of closing and reopening the economy during the pandemic, I have met with stakeholders to update them and listen to their feedback. This includes the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU.
The announcement made on Friday was based on strong public health advice that notwithstanding a stable or improving epidemiological situation, there are three concerns, in particular. First, the certainty of increased social mixing as we approach Christmas and the impact that that might have. There is a flu season that we did not experience last year but expect to experience this year. Our immunity to the flu has waned as a consequence of social distancing for the past year or two. There is also uncertainty about the Omicron variant.
We sought to keep workers connected to their employers and on the payroll and to help businesses survive through a robust and sustained programme of financial support from Government. We will continue to provide assistance where and when it is needed and this was evident on Friday when we announced a package of financial interventions for the hospitality, events and entertainment sectors. This includes a change to the Covid-19 restrictions support scheme, CRSS, or the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, details of which will be confirmed very shortly by the Minister for Finance, an extension of the targeted commercial rates waiver at least until the end of March and an extra €25 million to the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media targeted at the live events sector and other sectors covered under the remit of that Department.
The Tánaiste mentioned that he had a meeting which is fair enough. On the sectors that have been specifically impacted, particularly the entertainment and hospitality sector, one is talking about the Unite and Mandate unions representing the workers there. There needs to be more detailed engagement. When I speak to people, some of whom have attended the meetings or have certainly been briefed after them, I have learned that there needs to be detailed discussions around issues such as ventilation. If I take the example of a restaurant in my town of Skerries called Potager, it has put in ventilation systems but it is still finding itself restricted. No account is taken of that. There needs to be more detailed engagement and I do not necessarily mean with the Tánaiste, although that would be helpful, but with his officials around mitigation measures, as well as the announcement and explaining of how it is going to work. The Tánaiste said he is accepting feedback. They tell me they want some traction on the mitigation measures but are not getting that. How much value is either side getting out of these engagements when they happen?
In fairness, anybody who takes part in these engagements will say that there are very valuable. We do them in different ways. There is the hospitality and tourism forum, which is co-chaired by me and the Minister, Deputy Martin. It very much engages with the representative bodies in that sector and there are many of them. Unions are also represented there, as they should be. The Minister of State, Deputy English, chairs the retail forum which is probably less significant in pandemic terms at the moment but was a very big deal when retail was restricted with issues around supply chains. There is then the labour employer economic forum, LEEF, which has sectoral groups with different unions represented on it through ICTU, which is led by the Taoiseach but I also have a role in that.
Ventilation is covered under the work safety protocol but at the moment no business gets any kind of additional benefit for having good ventilation and that is down to an absence of adequate evidence but there probably should be. That is something that I have an open mind on and if it is the case that the evidence stacks up and we could allow higher capacities in well-ventilated businesses, that would make sense to me.
The Tánaiste will not find what he is not looking for. The businesses are not being asked for this and they tell me that it is not on the agenda. They are getting no credit for it but they have put their hands in their pockets. They did so, incidentally, believing that they were not going to have to take a step back and had in sight what they thought was going to be a reasonably decent trading month. Many businesses were relying on the fact people would be dying to get back out, as I am and as I am sure the Tánaiste is. We want to be able to socialise again. Businesses have spent that money and now find themselves in a situation where their capacity to trade is being curtailed and they are not getting any support. The Tánaiste said that is not getting any traction and that he has an open mind on it but has he done anything on it? Has he engaged in any research on this and looked at how it might be done because there are premises with high ceilings and good ventilation? These are very different from smaller premises with lower ceilings and capacity.
It is very much on the agenda and is part of the work safety protocol. Grants have been provided to schools, for example, for CO2 monitors and other things like that.
NPHET, our public health adviser, is sceptical in respect of the benefit of HEPA filters. However, if the pandemic is going to be a long war - unfortunately, it may be a war - part of our vaccine plus response in the next couple of months, the next year or however long the pandemic will last, may well be filtration, clean air and allowing more capacity in areas that are well filtered. It is something on which I will spend more time.
