Ireland to continue in acute emergency maybe ‘for years’
Ireland will continue in the acute emergency phase of the Covid-19 crisis for "most probably years", with "further waves an ever-present danger," according to the Secretary General of the Department of Health.
Jim Breslin, who is due to appear alongside the Chief Medical Officer, Dr Tony Holohan, and HSE Chief Executive Officer, Paul Reid before the new Oireachtas Special Covid Committee today, will tell TDs in his opening remarks, that: "This is not a 1, 2 or even a 3-day storm, after which we move to the recovery phase.
"The acute phase of this crisis will definitely be measured in months and most probably in years, rather than days."
He will also tell the committee that Ireland's health service has been "tested to the limits but not overwhelmed" however "there is much more work to do, in particular in improving test turnaround times" and "the deaths we have experienced in our long-term care facilities are the most difficult aspect of our experience with Covid-19".
Meanwhile, the Munster economy will take "a lot longer" to recover from the national Covid-19 jobs slump even as the return to work got underway yesterday for many builders and some retail staff, a leading economist has warned.
Jim Power said that, paradoxically, the return to work would lay bare the regional divides that have long scarred the economy because so much economic activity and high-paying jobs were concentrated in the Dublin and east coast region compared with other locations.
“We will see in Munster that the improvement will take a lot longer than in Dublin or the east coast for example because there is much more of an economic dependency on tourism and hospitality,” he said.
“Look at County Clare, look at County Kerry, and County Cork where tourism is an incredibly important part of the economy and tourism is going to take a long time to get back.”
His comments come as new Government figures show that the number of people availing of some sort of emergency or unemployment payment reached a new peak since the onset of the crisis in March.
The number of people on the €350-a-week payment fell by 5,000 in the week to 585,000, while the number on the wage-support scheme rose by 7,800 to 464,000, according to figures from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection.
Including people on April’s official unemployment count, the figures mean that 1.26 million, or a new record of 66% of the entire private sector workforce, are receiving some sort of Covid-19 or unemployment payment.
A further four people have died from Covid-19, bringing the overall death toll to 1,547 in Ireland, the lowest death toll seen since March 27.
Just two of the deaths were recent, with the other two dating from April.
Meanwhile, 88 further cases were reported, bringing the total number of confirmed to 24,036.
