Taoiseach seeking Cabinet approval to establish special committee examining coronavirus impact

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Health Minister Simon Harris are to seek Cabinet approval on Tuesday to establish a special committee to examine the full impact of the Coronavirus on the economy and society.

The Irish Examiner has learned that the Taoiseach will chair the new sub-committee.

"The Taoiseach and the Minister will now establish a special Cabinet committee to assess the impacts of Covid-19 and oversee the cross Government response. This will be chaired by the Taoiseach,” a spokeswoman for Mr Harris said.

Mr Harris will also confirm the establishment of a stakeholder event to brief trade unions, employer organisatons, voluntary leaders and a variety of sectors.

Mr Harris said he would not be surprised if more confirmed cases of the Coronavirus emerge here in Ireland.

He said that the HSE will be given all and any resource needed from Government to deal adequately with the crisis, which has seen one confirmed case here emerge.

A teenager remains under treatment in a Dublin hospital and his school, Scoil Chatriona in Glasnevin will be closed for 14 days as a result of the diagnosis.

Mr Harris, speaking on RTE's Six One News said: “We won't be surprised if we see more cases and we've been preparing for that for a number of weeks”.

He stressed that despite concerns being expressed about the capacity of the health services to cope with a more widespread outbreak, he said resources will be made available.

“Any extra allocation that is required will be made available by government. The Taoiseach is very clear on that. So too is the Minister for Finance," Mr Harris said.

It is important to say that when you got to the stage where there were many, many cases in our country, and that's not the stage now, you'd move from what's called the containment stage to the mitigation stage.

Mr Harris said it is important for people to know that so far we have not had any community transmission in this country.

“So we've had one imported case where somebody came back from abroad, and we haven't seen community transmission. So we're still in the containment phase,” he said.

He also said the Opposition are being constantly informed as to developments.

“Absolutely. I mean, there's huge and I must also point out because we're in an interregnum period where there's obviously government formation talks going on, we're keeping the opposition very well briefed, and I want to thank and acknowledge and the cross party support that everyone's providing this is a real public health issue that we all need to work together on,” the minister said.