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WE’RE USED TO chopping and changing at this stage — but the new rules around isolation times for people who have Covid-19 and also close contacts of confirmed cases will take a bit of time for us all to wrap our heads around.
Approved by Cabinet earlier this week, the new, more relaxed regime is being put in place largely to alleviate staffing issues across both the public and private sectors.
Thousands of workers have either been out sick with Covid-19 over the past number of weeks or have been unable to attend work due to being named a close contact.
Up until now, anyone with a case of Covid-19, confirmed by a PCR test, was required to isolate at home for a period of ten days.
Close contacts of confirmed cases who did not exhibit symptoms of the virus were also asked to restrict their movements — avoid social contact, stay home from work and don’t go to the shops, in other words — for ten days if they had not yet received their booster jab, or five days if they had.
To complicate matters further, the antigen testing requirements for close contacts depended on whether you had received a booster and whether you had received it more or less than seven days before becoming a close contact:
But from today, things will be a little different — and in some ways, a bit simpler.
Anyone who tests positive for Covid-19 will now have to self-isolate for a period of just seven rather than ten days.
When should you isolate? If you have a positive test result or are symptomatic and waiting for a test result. Remember your period of isolation starts on the day you develop symptoms / have a positive test result. pic.twitter.com/CQXaeanA4F
— Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) January 12, 2022
This will include anyone aged between four and 39 who gets a positive result on an antigen test. They will no longer need a confirmatory PCR test. Why? Because the HSE says they will be able to log their positive antigen results with the health service via an online portal, which is set to open today.
Provided they have no symptoms of the virus, close contacts of confirmed cases will no longer have to isolate as long as they have received their booster jab.
Close contacts who have not received a booster will still have to restrict their movements but only for seven days rather than 10.
These rules will apply to both household close contacts (people who live or sleep in the same home as a confirmed case) and non-household close contacts (anyone who has spent more than 15 minutes with a confirmed case 48 hours before they developed symptoms or 24 hours before they did their test).
All close contacts are nonetheless advised to take an antigen test before entering crowded, enclosed or poorly ventilated spaces and are also asked to wear an appropriate face mask in those spaces.
Having campaigned for weeks to have the isolation periods reviewed, employers, naturally, are very pleased with the changes announced earlier this week.
Ibec’s Danny McCoy said earlier this week that the new regime “will enable many struggling businesses to take their first steps towards addressing crippling staffing challenges”.
True, it means that more employees — particularly in essential services like manufacturing and food retail — will be able to return to the workplace.
Even if there has been a Covid outbreak in their home, they will still be able to come into work — provided, of course, they have no symptoms and they have received their booster jab.
But experts and worker representatives have warned that it can’t be a free-for-all with employers demanding their workers return to offices from today.
▪️Changes to self-isolation rules must be kept under constant review by NPHET.
— Laura Bambrick (@drbambrick) January 12, 2022
▪️Employers must provide staff with high-grade masks and supply antigen tests.
▪️Enhanced Illness Benefit must remain available to workers, as needed. pic.twitter.com/HPHf7bMUoU
Everyone is still advised to work from home where possible, for one.
“That’s what employers should be following in terms of the guidelines,” said employment law expert Caroline Reidy, managing director of the HR Suite yesterday.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1′s Morning Ireland programme, she said, “If the employer has done a risk assessment to ensure that people can come safely back into the office for reasons that are necessary and the employee wants to come back then that can be looked at.
“However, I think work from home needs to be the primary advice particularly for the next couple of weeks.”
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy today launched the Personal Protective Equipment (Covid-19) Bill, which would amend the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 to ensure employers provide employees with FFP-2 grade masks or higher where necessary during the pandemic.
With reporting by Hayley Halpin
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I’m appalled at the commissioner and the Gardaí in general. They’re so consumed by their own corruption they can’t escape their own deceit and lies
@kingstown: Same thing happening in Irish Army Air Corps but with a death toll of 25 (20 adults & 5 children). See http://www.accas.info for more.
@kingstown: she’s an embarrassment to her job and to her family.
Autocratic, ignorant, too much power, corrupt and a liar. Take note if you’re related to her. A bad human being.
@Chris Finn: forgot incompetent
The scariest thing is that some people want the Gardai to be armed.
Can you imagine.
Look at what they achieved when only armed with breathalysers. Give them guns and by lunchtime the same day all the violent crims in the country would be shot dead. Officially anyway. Lot of zombies walking about though.
@Cram Wood: Shot for no Road Tax, Comes to mind
@Cram Wood: These people are in courts daily giving evidence they swear to be nothing but the truth and judges jail people on their sworn evidence , from what I am seeing the Garda have a very occasional relationship with the truth.
@Cram Wood: of course they should be armed. A firearm is just another tool for their protection. Just like an Asp or pepper spray.
You know she’s in trouble when there’s so few negative comments about Alan Kelly under the article.
@Chris Mansfield: Kelly is Scu* full stop.
Good old AK47 saying Barrett’s done the country “Great service” which he has. Pity he wouldn’t do the same and fu€k right off. This goon should been locked up for he’s false allegations about those bomb treats.
@Honest John: what’s s bomb treat ???
@Willy Malone: ah a bomb threat….. Well that’s completely different to a bomb treat :-)
@Philip Grant: funny that you misspelt “a” when correcting someone on a spelling error!
@Philip Grant: Do grow up ….
@Honest John: fairplay john.i can’t stand that c u next Tuesday kelly
Law of the Interwens.
@Philip Grant: sometimes a joke falls flat and you have to explain. Don’t let this put you off
@Honest John: I would love to punch Kelly.
@Philip Grant: I thought the same, I was so concerned I called the guards to ask them if I needed the bomb squad to have a look through my sweets which I keep in a bedside locker. These bomb treats sound like they could be dangerous with the potential to blow my whole stash up.
Even worse I could have had one in mouth unknowingly. Noirin answered and she assured me that It was nothing to be concerned about, have a cup of tea, she said, the call only lasted a few minutes.
PAC is doing great work , keep it up bring Commissioner back and get the truth . After all the members of the PAC as politicians are used to WAFFLING and should get to the bottom of things quickly.
@PVD: Of course they will any day now before the Summer recess in the year dot.
The reason FF have not forced FGs hand on this issue is simple. Currently both can ill afford to face the electorate. Together they will command less than last election. Both know this and the farce will only end when FF feel they can do better .
@Willy Malone:
If there was a election now I think it would be FF with FG again. I can’t see that changing until we get a viable alternative
@Nick Allen: or until everyone 60 dies.
@Christopher Gardiner: over 60
You just couldn’t make it up…how is she still in a job? Sure you can’t believe a word out of her mouth.
Well done Mr Barrett for outing this,but I certainly wouldn’t have that cad Kelly in my corner.kelly is a ball of scutter.
Commiss is the wrong person for the job. Cultural change needed and I don’t think you can bring that if you have been surrounded by that culture for 30 years. I don’t think we can lay all the ills at her feet but nor do I think she can fix it either.
The review will be a whitewash as O’Toole helped appoint O’Sullivan AND she was also found guilty of abusing Whistle-blowers in Boston (USD3 million payout) AND she is only doing the review on a part-time basis. Another cover up by FG and you have to say it all stinks and ask what does O’Sullivan have over them and another scandal.
Would the crystal clear logic now being applied by Alan Kelly in his evaluation of Mr. Barratt’s trojan work at AGS HR Dept be possible if AK47 was on the front bench of Government?
Not likely!
What is becoming clear here is when folks with private sector senior management experience are hired for senior Public Sector roles, lids get lifted, skeletons get released from cupboards, concepts of transparancy, responsibility and accountibility come to the fore in organisations funded by the hard-pressed tax payer.
Alan Who? O yes the rather excitable has-been. Mr Kelly, it’s a shame the same can’t be said for you, the only service you did for this country was to remind us, never, ever to vote labour again.
Problem in the guards is only a reflection on how irish public care about corruption, there is always a willingness for us to bend the rules and public dont really care about corruption as after all the tribunals, banking failure, dob payments to lowry, the big guys know nothing is going to happen to them.
He’s done a better service to his country than you Alan Kelly!
How the head of HR if an organisation with a culture of corruption can been seen to be doing a great job is beyond me. He is responsible for staff and motivation and insuring correct policies are in place. This is all failing in the Gardai
@Nick Allen: the corruption in AGS goes back decades
@Nick Allen: depends what’s actually under his remit. Wasn’t one of his issues the fact that some of his departments were moved to another area?
@Nick Allen: if the upper ranks and the Commissioner herself are opposed to the civilian Head of HR, he can’t be effective. He is a recent arrival in an institutionally corrupt and malfunctioning organisation.
A new broom, unaffected by and not compromised by past and recent corruption needs to be broiught in to commence a process of radical change.
The Commissioner was fundamentally unreliable in her evidence on a matter where the evidence she gave was in her own self interest. She was factually inaccurate.
The current Commissioner is a symptom of a very sick, malfunctioning and corrupt organisation. She needs to be replaced.
“LABOUR’S ALAN KELLY” – stopped reading then
@eastsmer #IRExit: me too . No interest in SCU*.
Don’t often agree with Kelly, but this time he got it absolutely right.
@Pj Berry: I don’t need Kelly to tell me anything. If he told me the sky was blue I’d check myself. Thats what being a parasite does.
If I was Comissioner Noirin I’d hardly be worried about being waterboarded by Irish Water Ex pin up boy Alan Kelly. He defended that monstrosity through thick and thin. The PAC made up of these type of people is a totally wrong forum to investigate anything. It’s circling the wagons by Politicians who are just given a platform for soundbites for the perpetually fawning media in Ireland.It is ultimately a smokescreen this committee to prove to the great unwashed the Politicians are on top of matters.
I don’t like Alan Kelly, but I think he is right about this.
What is hypocritical though is his bit where he says “he believes that Barrett has paved the way and urges others who have concerns about garda management to speak out.”
What has been done by anyone in Government to ensure whistle blowers are protected? Absolutely nothing. To date, their claims have been roundly refuted first and then accepted and commended later when the wrongs can no longer be covered up. Where do we see a history of justice for whistle blowers where they are reinstated to their positions or careers in as far as is possible???
Easy for Kelly to encourage others when his neck is not on the line. Most whistle blowers lives are forever changed and their respective careers are over. No wonder many people keep their heads down, ignore and remain immune to wrong doing going on around them. (I’m talking mainly about public servant positions here.)
If we want to change that sad reality, Government need to create a culture where whistleblowers are commended (provided their claims are real), instead of being made out to be wrongdoers.
If Kelly had a history of pioneering something like this, his words would be more meaningful and less likely to dismissed as just soundbites.
@Ian Oh: it appears that everyone straight away believes that Barrett is the ” man from on high” in this case. Why should it be assumed that his story is more credible than that of O’Sullivan, we do not know what differences of opinion there is there, or what the relationship is like. I heard a Journalist sat the other day that O’Sullivan had a gang of officers in the Park that she possibly cannot trust. Well if that is the case, and you will have that in any organisation, who knows who is trying to knife who. Once anyone contradicts Her it is assumed that she is lying, let the drama play out and then we will have a result.
Yes exactly Alan Kelly,you dont know her so you are disrespecting the woman.(O’Toole)
You have an axe to grind over your failure to win in the last election.And anything you can do to cause trouble you will do.
Its sad that somebody like you can be so bitter.
O’Toole is a plant. She is far to near events to be believed. What is Alan Kelly up to anyway? I thought he had disappeared.
@Gus Sheridan: check O’Toole’s previous and then see what you think….l
Hes like the milky bar kid with brown envelopes
Why cant this toerag Kelly just bugger off. His opinion on everything carries as much value as a Zimbabwean Dollar.
It just amazes me to read the comments on this page, one would have to wonder what kind of people we have in Ireland. What are they thinking , and why are they all so much against Authority and Governments . Ye all seem to know everything about all things visible and invisible. No matter what Government of any sort does it seems to be wrong, we have turned into a very selfish race with the mentality, not around my place as regards factories, pylons , wind farms etc. It appears that they do not want to pay for anything either, no water charges . Something is going to have to give , we cannot continue whinging about everything. Don’t forget that the Gardai are doing a mighty job fighting crime on the streets , fighting a serious Drugs War against criminals who want to take over the streets.
@Eugene Comaskey: Yes lets all bury our heads in the sand and say everythings just dandy like yourself :)
@Eugene Comaskey: You obviously are terrified of people waking up. I have news for you. Get used to it. We haven’t even started holding this country to account like other countries. Advice. Don’t ever go to France. They have a far more educated electorate. You wouldn’t like the questions they ask.
Alan Kelly is a complete moron, the epitome of the opinionated rural TD who thinks he is royalty, to hear him now talk about ” the working man” is nauseating , the Labour mantra never hear when they are in power.
Alan Kelly is all about Alan Kelly, ask anyone who ever worked to him when he was a junior Minister.
In that case he’s done more than you alan ya parasitic f@@ker!!
Whatever Kelly’s motives are (and I’m not overly fond of him) he is redeeming some of his lost credibility by his tenacity in probing the truth of this debacle.
More TDs should be as vociferous in condemning the behaviour of the Gardai, if only to curb further corruption. It can’t continue…
@Peter Higgins: Are you for real. Not in a million years will I be bought over by his false concern. You must be very gullible. Labour will be delighted theres people with short memories like you.
Now where is a pistol and a bottle of whiskey?
To be quite honest I refused to read the article because anything to do with Alan Kelly is poison. He has nothing to say to me or the Irish People. Power hungry cowards have noting to say. They are despicable and they showed their true colours in power. Kelly is intoxicated with his own self importance. A good dig in the arrogant face I’d love to give him.
Finally, a Labour Party TD with a pulse. Stay alive Alan Kelly
@Dolly White: He is a parasite. You forget we saw him in power. He is a low life.
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