The Taoiseach has defended the govt’s handling of the reopening of nightclubs and the wider hospitality sector. @MichealMartinTD said the govt had resisted the option of pausing the reopening of the sector, and had proceeded on the basis of advice from public health officials.
2/ “To be frank with you, COVID has created a situation, the situation has taken a turn for the worse. The government has responded to that and followed the advice of NPHET,” he told reporters in Brussels.
3/ “It's very straightforward. It's very difficult. It's very tough and challenging for all concerned. But the key point is the government decision facilitates a reopening within a certain restrictive environment because of COVID-19.”
4/ Michael Martin said the government had re-opened society “very effectively” and the economy had bounced back.
5/ “Thousands of people have come back to work. I think the government have handled, and I think the Irish people have, and different sectors, have handled the phased and cautious reopening of our society well actually, since early springtime.”
6/ The Taoiseach would not be drawn on the general rollout of booster vaccines, but said he believed a Covid booster shot would become as widely accepted as an annual flu vaccine.
7/ “I can't give a timeline on [the booster roll out] right now. We’re subject to advice from NIAC. But in the fullness of time, it may very well be that people will [receive a booster] just like we get the flu vaccine,” he said.
8/ The Taoiseach called on people to get vaccinated and said it was encouraging that a large number of people had come forward to get the vaccine for the first time due to the debate around hospitality.
9/ “We need more of that. People should get vaccinated. It will protect you and those around you from becoming severely ill, and from being admitted to hospital and to ICU,” he said.
10/ Asked if he could guarantee that, as Covid cases rise, there would not be a resumption of restrictions by Christmas, the Taoiseach said that vaccination rates were between 92-93pc and that that gave the country “significant protection.”
11/ However, he added that as we move into winter experts were analyzing COVID all the time.
12/ “We’ve seen this seasonality dimension that some virologists would have argued for, for quite some time. And I think we're beginning to witness that. And so we have to monitor this. The phase we're now in does speak to a collective effort from everybody to be cautious.”
13/ Asked about the picketing of politicians' homes in the context of last week’s murder of the Conservative MP David Amess, Mr Martin said his home had been subject to protests during his ministerial career and he had been subjected to protestors on the street.
14/ He said garda intelligence was the first line of defence, but he said: “I don’t think that people should not turn up at someone’s home. We’ve all experienced that.”
15/ He added: “We need to protect that ingredient in Irish politics, that connection between people. And sometimes I think some extreme political groups want to disrupt that connection. That's part of their agenda.
16/ “I always make a point of walking my streets. There were times in my political life when I would have been people who would have encircled me and would have roared and screamed at me, shouting and roaring sometimes, holding phones up to your face and all the rest of it.
17/ “I would keep going. And because I think it's absolutely essential that we don't lose the ground, and don't lose the street as elected representatives."
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