Micheál Martin: No change in policy on return to office despite health chief's pleas to 'work from home this winter'

Deputy Chief Medical Office Ronan Glynn urged people to work from home in the coming months as Covid-19 cases spike, but Micheál Martin says the government policy on a phased office return is unchanged

Taoiseach Micheál said there would be a 'phased return to the office – that is the Government position and it has not changed'. Picture: iStock

The Taoiseach has insisted Government policy towards office returns remains unchanged, despite pleas from health chiefs for people to work from home in the coming months in light of spiking Covid-19 cases.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer Ronan Glynn said people should "work from home where possible this autumn and winter" in order to reduce cases of Covid-19 and other respiratory viruses circulating.

Official Government policy changed in September to "attendance at work for specific business requirements may commence on a phased and staggered attendance basis”.

Speaking in Cork as 1,914 new cases of the virus were announced, Micheál Martin said the Government position was unchanged.

"There will be a phased return to the office – that is the Government position and it has not changed. That said, many companies informed us that it would indeed be a very phased return. Companies have taken their own decisions in that regard and have not all come back at once – they have phased it back and blended it."

Offices not a driver of cases

Mr Martin said he believed working in offices was not a driver of cases.

"I don't believe that is a particular contributor here to the worsening of figures. I think it is a wider issue of congregation more generally – social gatherings and so on. There is also a seasonality factor here in terms of climate.

"The public health people are also saying that our proximity to Britain and Northern Ireland is a factor in terms of the prevalence of the disease and also the fact that Delta  hit here harder and sooner than other EU countries and that had our levels at a higher rate even as the vaccination rate gathered pace."

Mr Martin echoed Mr Glynn's plea for unvaccinated and one-dose recipients to get their jabs. Some 300,000 remain unvaccinated, while about 70,000 have had just one dose.

"They key point is that we are in a much better position now than we were because of vaccination. It transforms the environment," Mr Martin said.

Earlier, Dr Cillian de Gascun, director of National Virus Reference Laboratory (NVRL), told a health symposium that vaccines are only one part of controlling Covid-19.

He said: “I don’t know whether, with our current vaccination strategy in isolation without other public health strategies being continued, we can get it down to what we would consider a sustainable, manageable endemic level... Certainly, the current generation of vaccinations are not sufficient in and of themselves to control this pandemic.”

Mr Martin said he disagreed with chair of the Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group at the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet), Prof Philip Nolan, that people leaving home with Covid-19 symptoms should be shunned the same way as drink drivers.

"Philip Nolan has led well when it comes to Nphet, but it is not the language I would use myself," he said.