Vivienne Clarke
Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall has called for a system similar to the digital travel cert to be used for the hospitality sector.
Such a system would eliminate the element of discrimination in the Government’s proposal that only people who have been vaccinated would be allowed use indoor dining facilities, she told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.
It didn’t make sense that a digital cert would allow people to travel, but they were not allowed to dine indoors, she said.
Ms Shortall pointed out that in other countries there were other factors involved in indoor dining such as ventilation and higher quality face masks, all these needed to be discussed in Ireland, she said.
'Very discriminatory'
It was a “real problem” and “very discriminatory” to say that it was okay for a young person to work in hospitality, but they could not use the same facilities.
Ms Shortall said she was opposed to a situation where people could not access a service because they were not vaccinated when they had no control over when they could get vaccinated.
It was also wrong to expect hospitality staff to have to check if people had been vaccinated. “That’s not their business.” Other countries use PCR and antigen tests, she added.
Ms Shortall called for the introduction of measures similar to the digital travel cert, she also said there should have been discussions in advance with the hospitality sector to draw up a plan.
