Health Minister hits out at 'gangs of teens' ignoring social distancing measures

Minister for Health Simon Harris has said that he is “nowhere near satisfied” that people are taking social distancing recommendations seriously.

It was not good seeing “gangs of teens” getting together, he told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny show. “This is not the summer holidays.”

Everyone needs to play their part to halt the spread of the virus and to smooth the peak. The Minister said he expected a significant rise in cases in the coming days because of the increase in the number of tests being carried out.

“We are preparing for the worst-case scenario, that is the prudent thing to do.”

Mr Harris expressed his appreciation for all who had volunteered to come back to work for the health service.

Many other countries had stopped community testing, but Ireland would continue to do so as the advice from the World Health Organisation was to “test, test, test,” he said.

We’re being ambitious, we’re being proactive.

However, the Minister warned that there may be delays in testing. “Speaking bluntly people will have to wait, there is no way to avoid that. We are asking people to be patient.

“The important thing, the only thing, to do is to self isolate.

“Hundreds of thousands of lives will be saved if people follow the self-distancing measures.”

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