Minister for Agriculture tests positive for Covid-19 - cabinet restricting movements

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue has tested positive for Covid-19.

The Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has tested positive for Covid-19.

A spokesman for the Donegal TD confirmed that he has tested positive for the virus this morning after taking a test yesterday afternoon.

Mr McConalogue has no symptoms and is self-isolating.

He had tested negative last week both before travelling to Brussels for a fisheries council meeting and immediately after arriving back in Ireland.

The entire Cabinet are now restricting their movements as Mr McConalogue attended the meeting of ministers on Tuesday in Dublin Castle.

The Cabinet met yesterday to approve further restrictions over the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, Dr Colm Henry, Chief Clinical Officer with the HSE, said the 14-day isolation advice means that anyone who came to Ireland from Britain from December 11 onwards should self-isolate in their bedroom.

"Self-isolation means staying in your room in so far as possible, except for essential purposes," he said.

"You should stay in your room to ensure you are not the means of transmission of this more transmissible form of the virus within the house."

Asked if it means eating Christmas dinner in their room, Dr Henry told RTÉ's Morning Ireland: "yes, sadly it did mean that."

Wishing Mr McConalogue a speedy recovery, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said he returned home from Government Buildings after getting word that a member of Cabinet had tested positive.

"There’s a thousand families in this country waking up this morning from those figures yesterday to that reality. 

"My thoughts and well wishes goes out to every one of those families. And that’s why we have to act in difficult circumstances the way we do," he said.

Mr Ryan said he will follow all HSE advice on restricting his movements.

He said Ministers had met for a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday in Dublin Castle but that everyone kept up to four metres apart.

"It’s such a big room and it’s a very round table and Cabinet meetings actually while I think there was a lot of coverage that it was a very lengthy Cabinet meeting, my recollection yesterday it wasn’t that... it was about a two hour meeting, if that, probably just a bit less than that.

"We have tried wherever possible in Government Buildings or other meetings to try and keep them to two hours on health advice. It was there or there about yesterday," Mr Ryan said.