People will not be excluded from indoor dining on the basis of their age if they have not yet been offered a Covid-19 vaccine, a Minister has indicated.
Minister of State Ossian Smyth said negative Covid-19 tests will be “in the mix” when the Government designs a plan to allow the reopening of indoor hospitality, according to The Irish Times.
Mr Smyth said discussions with the hospitality sector on the plans would take place on Monday.
“What’s a really important principle is that people are not excluded because of their age, if the vaccination rollout hasn’t reached their age or, for example, if they are immune-compromised and they couldn’t take a vaccine, that they don’t get excluded,” he told RTÉ Radio One on Saturday.
“There has to be an option for everybody and certainly tests are there in the mix. But then again I can’t prejudge what’s going to happen before we work it out with the restaurants.”
Travel pass
Earlier this week, it was announced the planned reopening of indoor hospitality on July 5th would be delayed amid concern over a surge in cases of the Delta variant.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has said that indoor dining should be restricted to people who are fully vaccinated to limit the spread of the disease.
On Saturday in Cork, Taoiseach Micheál Martin declined to be drawn on the specifics of Government plans for indoor dining.
Asked if the Government planned to use the EU Digital Covid-19 cert showing someone’s vaccination status as a so-called ‘Corona pass’ for indoor dining, Mr Martin said it was too early to speculate on what would emerge.
“We’re proceeding with the digital Covid certificate in respect of travel, that work is well underway, and pretty good progress has been made on that but it’s far too early to say whether that would be applied to the domestic situation,” he said.
“I’m not going to speculate on the precise measures we’re going to take to help the return of indoor hospitality. We’re going to engage with the representative bodies of hospitality about indoor dining, and to work out what’s most effective in terms of facilitating the safe reopening of that sector.”
The Taoiseach also said on Saturday that the Irish public have the power to weaken the coming wave of Delta variant infections.
Just over 900 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed on the island of Ireland on Saturday. A further 448 cases were confirmed in the Republic, while 460 cases were confirmed in Northern Ireland.
The Delta variant now accounts for 75 per cent of Covid-19 cases in Northern Ireland, and is suspected to account for around 70 per cent of new cases in the Republic.
