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22nd Dec 2020

Micheál Martin: “People deserved a break from the Level 5 restrictions”

Conor Heneghan

Paddy's Day

“I think six weeks was quite severe on people at Level 5.”

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has rejected suggestions that the lifting of Level 5 restrictions at the beginning of December is responsible for the increase in cases of Covid-19 and a return to Level 5 from Christmas Eve.

Martin today confirmed that Ireland would return to Level 5, with specific exceptions, from Thursday (24 December) following a rise in cases in Covid-19 described by Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan as “gravely concerning”.

Details of the Level 5 measures to come into effect from Christmas Eve can be viewed here and are expected to remain in place for the first two months of 2021, but the Taoiseach rejected the suggestion that having to take such actions was a direct consequence of Level 5 measures having been lifted in early December.

“I think we had six weeks of Level 5 in this country, which resulted in Ireland having the lowest incidence rate in the European Union,” Martin said.

“So the Level 5 restrictions worked and people deserved a break from the Level 5 restrictions.

“And we opened up, moderately, actually, as a society.

“And as I have said… if you go through the figures in the initial weeks, it was quite modest. But it’s in the last week there has been a dramatic increase.”

“I think six weeks was quite severe on people at Level 5 and it did get the numbers very significantly down and we kept very significant restrictions until the 18th of December as well, in terms of household visits, for example,” Martin added.

“We’ve acted quickly. As I said in my speech back then, when we lifted restrictions, we will crack down strongly and quickly when the numbers are growing and when we feel it’s safe to reopen, we will do that.

“That’s the pattern and that’s the approach we have to take.”

Martin was backed up by Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, who pointed out that the rise in the last week of the positivity rate of Covid-19 and the number of daily cases surprised everyone, including Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan and Professor Philip Nolan, Chair of the NPHET Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group.

“As recently as Thursday (17 December), and that’s the last time NPHET met, the advice from NPHET was what we needed to do on the 28th of December was to close bars and restaurants and restrict (household) visits to one person.

“And NPHET actually hasn’t met since then but the Chief Medical Officer, having met some of NPHET so concerned yesterday, wrote to us yesterday recommending that we need to do much more and to move to Level 5.

“That’s how much things changed in the space of five days.”

“If we had a cabinet meeting at the weekend we would have accepted NPHET’s advice, which was to close hospitality on the 28th of December and restrict visits to one household,” Varadkar added.

“And we would have been meeting today and we would have been changing that, because the situation has changed dramatically.

“It’s there in the figures, just in the last five or six days.”

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