MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT Eamon Ryan has said the test and trace system was not prepared to rapidly scale up in response to recent outbreaks.
Ryan was speaking today following the announcement by government of a number of new restrictions to stop the spread of Covid-19 in Ireland.
These include limits on the number of visitors to a household and fresh public health advice urging older people to reduce their interactions outside their homes. Workers have also been advised to continue to work from home if possible and members of the public have been discouraged from using public transport, unless it is for essential travel.
There were criticisms yesterday that the new restrictions did little to target environments such as food processing facilities and direct provision centres in which outbreaks have been identified in recent weeks.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Today with Sarah McInerney, Minister Ryan said a longer-term approach would be needed to address quality of life and occupational health issues in relation to meat plants. He also said government has committed to changing the direct provision system, but it will not be a quick fix.
The first step in the short-term, he said, was the commencement of a weekly blanket testing system for people working or living in these environments. However he said the rapid expansion in testing has “led to a certain delay in turnaround”.
“I think the system was caught off guard with the speed of it,” he said. The minister said the problem is the responsibility of the “entire political administrative system” and the government acknowledges turnaround times for testing and contact tracing are “not good enough”.
One of the difficulties, he said, was getting the necessary numbers of public health officials to do contact tracing.
“We have to learn from that and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said.
Meanwhile government sources have said some ministers at yesterday’s Cabinet meeting were critical of the severity of the recommendations made by the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET), particularly since community transmission remains low.
Questions were raised about Ireland’s approach compared to other EU countries where case numbers are similar but government are continuing to reopen, with strong test and trace systems in place.
Some ministers said the decision to take steps backwards in the re-opening plans will cause damage and there was criticism of the confusion caused by messaging around the changes.
This morning Minister Ryan acknowledged that there were contradictions in some of the decisions the government took – making an exception to the six-person gathering rule for weddings, for example.
He said due to the recent spike “we have to restrict what is optional to make sure we can keep doing what it essential”.
Ryan said it is vital to get children back to school and other areas of the economy and society would have to be restricted to ensure this can still happen.
- With reporting by Christina Finn.
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