Vaccine IDs for indoor dining labelled 'completely bananas'
Government plans to restrict indoor dining to fully vaccinated people are already in jeopardy, with major legal and ethical obstacles emerging.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin yesterday announced that the planned return of indoor dining on July 5 has been postponed amid fears of the rising number of Delta-variant Covid-19 cases, effectively cancelling the summer for hospitality.
No new date has been given for the reopening, with the Government simply hoping to unveil the plan for an eventual return by July 19. That includes a proposal to restrict indoor dining, and other gatherings, to fully vaccinated people only.
However, doubts have already been expressed about the viability of such a scheme.
Senior Cabinet ministers told the it remains unclear if a system to check whether people are vaccinated is legally possible; whether the industry will co-operate with such a system; and if backbenchers will accept such an extreme measure.
Senior ministers vented fury at being “blindsided” by bleak projections from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet), which recommended that access to indoor dining should “only be permitted for those who have been fully protected by vaccination or who have had Covid-19 infection in the previous nine months”.
Those projections included warnings of thousands of daily Covid cases and hundreds of deaths, if the presence of the Delta variant continues to grow.
Ministers claim that no warning was given that such a presentation was coming, which left them with little time to digest the data.
Questions have arisen about the failure of the relationship between Health Minister Stephen Donnelly and chief medical officer Tony Holohan, as well as the lack of advance warning of what ministers described as the “radical new policy”.
Nphet said the planned easing of restrictions should only proceed once a robust, non-reproducible, and enforceable system of verification of vaccination/immunity status can be put in place to support this.
“If this is not deemed feasible, the Government should consider pausing further easing of these measures until such a system can be instituted,” Nphet said.
At what was described as a “messy and depressing” Cabinet meeting yesterday, Education Minister Norma Foley reportedly asked why this new demand from Nphet had not been communicated in advance of Monday night.
The feeling among Cabinet members was described as “messy and depressing” as ministers complained that Nphet had lobbed a grenade on their desks.
Mr Martin, defending the delay, said the postponement of indoor hospitality to some point after July 19 was done to avoid “another potential Covid tragedy”, while Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the country could be facing large numbers of deaths if the virus spread unchecked.
In a press conference, they outlined mitigation measures for bars and restaurants unable to open on July 5.
They will receive two double weeks of the Covid restriction support scheme, while hospitality staff unable to return to work can re-enrol for the pandemic unemployment payment.
No set plan has yet been outlined by the Government ahead of meetings with industry stakeholders and unions, but they hope to have a plan in place by July 19.
However, it was made clear that July 19 will not be the date indoor hospitality recommences, with warnings it could be “many weeks away”.
The proposal is to allow people who are fully vaccinated to meet indoors, not just in restaurants and bars but also in places such as theatres and music venues.
The plan was blasted as “completely bananas” by opposition TDs, who were furious at the poor communication and further disappointment for the hospitality sector.
Labour’s Alan Kelly told the Dáil he suspected plans would be unenforceable, blasting the move as “amateur hour”, while Sinn Féin’s David Cullinane said the pause without a plan is proof the Government has no plan and is merely seeking to “cobble one together”.
Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall has called for a system similar to the digital travel cert to be used for the hospitality sector, saying 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's
that it didn’t make sense that a digital cert would allow people to travel, but they were not allowed to dine indoors.
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.
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.
Meanwhile, the Government also approved advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee which permits the use of AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines for younger people, in a bid to move through cohorts quicker and to avoid waste.
Pharmacists yesterday met with the HSE to start discussions about vaccinating younger people, as well as the over 50s. Currently, about 800 pharmacies are giving out the single-shot J&J vaccine, but only for older people following a deal with the HSE.Â
The Irish Pharmacy Union is hopeful that a new deal could be struck which could see them play a much more significant role in the next stage of the rollout.
That is in addition to a group of about 700 GPs who have signed up to continue vaccinating even though they have completed their older and vulnerable groups.
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