There was confusion about what the restrictions actually entail. Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly had said residents in Dublin āabsolutely canā travel outside the county.
However, Taoiseach MicheƔl Martin later clarified the advice from the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) was that while people were being encouraged not to travel outside Dublin, but there was no regulation attached to it.
āI am encouraging people not to travel, if at all possible,ā Mr Martin told RTĆ.
TĆ”naiste Leo Varadkar was more emphatic last night, telling RTĆās PrimeTime that the Government was āstrongly discouraging people from travelling outside of Dublin city or county unless itās necessary.
āThat might be for work reasons. It might be to care for somebody. . . It really wouldnāt be to take a weekend awayā.
Varadkarās contribution prompted my CLP to express doubts about our Wexford jaunt next week after weād earlier established that there was no movement restriction in either level 2 or 3 in the department issued document. You could accept a given level having a couple of very specific exceptions, but this is just a shitshow. Look at the difference in messaging from Donnelly to Martin to Varadkar as the day progressed. Itās wishy washy and leads to confusion. Why didnāt they simply put Dublin into a level with clearly defined parameters? If they donāt want people in Dublin to travel at the moment, put the county in a level with a āno travelā parameter. Instead they come out with this guff and then tell us itās our problem weāve issues with it. Really stupid stuff.
The gov are like a hyperactive kid for the last couple of months continuously tweaking rules (or āstrong adviceā whatever that is), announcing them and then changing them on the fly.
Like, what will be in any way meaningfully different on Thurs vs Tues that will require further changes to rules?
Realistically, how could anyone anywhere plan any kind of trip or other event at the moment with this kind of fuckwittery and contradictory tinkering?
Well that was a new piece thrown in by Pascal this morning off the cuff in an interview. Was that his personal advice in the spur of the moment, or the gov advice (which was omitted from the press conference yesterday and most of the documentation) or is it NPHET telling him what to do?
