Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said there will be an increased Garda presence on Irish roads in the coming days as new restrictions come into effect but that road blocks will not be placed on the Border to prevent travel between the North and the Republic.
Speaking on Prime Time on Tuesday night, Mr Varadkar admitted gardaí had faced some problems around enforcing Covid-19 restrictions among people eating and drinking in gastropubs in the run up to Christmas.
Asked whether road blocks were being considered along the Border to stop people travelling from Britain entering Ireland via the flights to Belfast, the Tánaiste said there would be "a garda presence between counties".
The Tánaiste noted that the Irish Covid-19 situation had changed dramatically in recent days with the positivity rate rising from around 2.5 per cent in early December to about 5 per cent in the last week and said the country witnessing “exponential” and “vertical” growth in cases.
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Mr Varadkar said he believed the new mutated strain of the virus, which has been detected in Britain, had probably already reached Ireland although this has not yet been confirmed by laboratories.
Mr Vardkar acknowledged the decision to close the hospitality industry on Christmas Eve was “devastating” for businesses and said additional Covid-19 financial supports were being introduced to get those affected through “the next couple of weeks and months if needs be”.
These include a double payment of the Covid Restrictions Support Scheme over the next fortnight for businesses forced to shut and a three month holiday on commercial rates in the first quarter of 2021. The Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme will also stay in place at the current rate until at least January 31st while a “reopening grant” will be introduced in the spring or summer to help businesses reopen “when that time comes”.
Asked whether the Government should just introduce full Level 5 restrictions straight away rather than waiting a few days, Mr Varadkar said people’s physical and mental health had to be taken into account, citing WB Yeats’ famous words; “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart”.
Schools
Schools will still re-open during the first week of January as recent months show schools are “safe environments” and the chances of picking up the virus in these environments remain low, said the Tánaiste.
He said the focus must now be on ensuring older and vulnerable people do not catch the virus, particularly those in nursing homes, and urged people to minimize all social contacts. Community vaccination teams will distribute the first delivery of the Pfizer vaccine – 10,000 doses due to arrive on St Stephen's day – on January 30th but the State will need to "scale up the workforce" in order to carry out mass vaccinating across the country, said Mr Varadkar.
He reiterated that “tens of thousands” of doses of the Pfizer vaccine would start arriving into the country each week from January while the Moderna vaccine was set to be authorised at the European level on January 6th or 7th. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine should become available by the end of January and vaccines should start being distributed by GPs, in pharmacies and at the 15 mass vaccination centres around the country in February and March, he added.
The Tánaiste reminded viewers that the vaccine would be “available to everyone, it will be free, but of course it will not be compulsory”.
