Ireland should consider looking at a scheme to pay people to self-isolate, according to a public health professor.

It comes as people in parts of England are to be paid to quarantine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The scheme is being targeted at workers on lower incomes, who cannot work from home.

They will be able to claim up to stg£182 (€203) if they have to self-isolate.

Dr Brendan O'Shea is assistant professor in public health and primary care at Trinity College Dublin.

He told The Hard Shoulder that Ireland should consider similar measures.

"I think anything that supports people who are really working at the thin end of the wedge, in jobs that can be described as marginal, I think we need to consider them.

"UK society and Irish society are different, and I think the raft of benefits and the supports are different.

"It is worth considering, it's worth considering closely.

"But I'd be aware of just importing ideas directly from the UK".

Image by Kevin Phillips from Pixabay

He said certain jobs should be looked at being upgraded here.

"Certainly there are hundreds, there are thousands of jobs really, that we should be looking at and that we should be trying to upgrade or better support.

"Whether somebody goes to work or not, it's complex, and it's not all that simple.

"It depends who they have at home, it depends what dependents they have - it also depends on what level of security and what benefits they have with their employer.

"But certainly we can look, and we can identify - and I know in Kildare we've been looking at our meat plants in the last two or three weeks.

"Partly from the point of view of health and safety and transmission and risk, and also what kind of work in this?

"It's fierce tough work, it's back-breaking work, and also we look at the process: it's an industry that's producing large volumes of energy-dense food and selling it, it's being sold on.

"And if you look at the bigger cash flows as a jobs market, it's what David McWilliams might refer to as a 'winner takes all' jobs market.

"That the people at the base of the pyramid who are working in these jobs are paid very modestly for doing this very tough work.

"And the people who benefit are probably relatively small numbers at the top of the pyramid.

"So it is good to be standing back and looking, it is good to be standing back and seeing what we can easily do to improve things for people at the bottom.

"But there's also an opportunity to really overview the whole industry".

Main image: Picture posed by model shows a man self-isolating at home. Picture by: Jacob King/PA Wire/PA Images