I can confirm that my Departmental colleague, Simon Coveney TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, recently received correspondence from the Minister for Social Protection concerning a communication from the EU Commission about the addition of COVID-19 to the list of reportable occupational diseases.
A reply issued to the Minister for Social Protection in early February. In that reply it was outlined that the implications of the EU Commission communication on the occupational safety and health remit of my Department, and that of the Health and Safety Authority, are minimal. This is primarily because COVID-19 has already been recognised as a biological agent under a 2020 EU Commission Directive (2020/739) (relating specifically to SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19) which came into effect in Irish law through the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (Biological Agents) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (S.I. No. 539 of 2020).
In conjunction with the introduction of the Regulations the Health and Safety Authority introduced the 2020 Biological Agents Code of Practice. Under this Code of Practice an employer who becomes aware of a confirmed case of COVID-19 in an employee, as a result of the employee carrying out direct or deliberate work with coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is required to notify the Health and Safety Authority.
However, I would stress that these Regulations have no bearing on the specific and separate issue of the inclusion of COVID-19 in the Department of Social Protection’s Occupational Injuries Benefit Scheme. Any decision to include COVID-19 in the Occupational Injuries Benefit Scheme rests solely with the Minister for Social Protection and is not one on which I can offer a recommendation as I have no statutory responsibility for social protection matters.
