The Tánaiste has said he does not want to see COVID restrictions lifted in “one fell swoop”.

Leo Varadkar yesterday told his Parliamentary Party that he wants to set a March 31st deadline for the removal of almost all legal restrictions.

Businesses and Government backbenchers have called for restrictions to be lifted as soon as this weekend – with hospital figures reducing and ICU figures remaining stable.

NPHET is due to meet on Thursday, with Cabinet set to discuss their recommendations on Friday.

"One fell swoop"

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, Minister Varadkar said he expects restrictions to ease on a phased basis.

“I don’t think we should remove all restrictions in one fell swoop,” he said. “I would like to see us do it maybe in two or three phases. In case things go off, it does make sense to me to do it in phases.

“The reason I mentioned March 31st as the objective, the target I would like us to set to have almost all legal restrictions removed, is that the emergency legislation for COVID passes, masks and closing businesses expires on March 31st and I wouldn’t like us to have to renew it.

“But if it can be done before then, I would be happy with that.”

Restrictions

He said no decisions will be made until ministers hear what NPHET has to say.

“We haven’t seen any new models yet,” he said. “I will be interested to see them on Thursday or Friday, but you wouldn’t need to be an epidemiologist or a scientist to understand that, if we did just suddenly remove all restrictions, the risk of Omicron cases going back up again is higher than if we were to do it on a phased basis.”

Minister Varadkar refused to speculate on when the reopening may begin – noting that Government will announce “very clear information” on Friday.

Speculate

“I don’t want to speculate on any particular restriction or the timing of it being eased because I have gotten to know a lot of people who work in the restaurant sector, the pub sector and the hospitality sector over the last year or two and the one thing I have learned is that when they hear a Government minister saying a restriction is going to be eased, they want to know that is the case,” he said.

“They don’t want us raising expectations only to have them dashed. They don’t want people scrambling to make plans only to have to cancel them; I think that is not fair.

“We will meet on Friday, or we have tentative plans at least for a Cabinet meeting on Friday, and we will be able to give people very clear information then and a bit of notice too.”

He also spoke about the rationale behind the new public holiday approved by Cabinet this morning and gave his explanation of who will qualify for the €1,000 pandemic bonus.

You can listen back here.