‘Ad hoc’ plans mean McEntee can take six months leave
Quarantine fear over influx of fruit-pickers
CONCERN is growing that the need for fruit and vegetable pickers in the coming market garden season may place the Government’s new quarantine system under serious pressure.
This has emerged in the wake of a warning by Stephen
Donnelly that such workers are not exempt from quarantine regulations.
Irish growers rely on 3,000 to 4,000 seasonal workers from Europe to harvest Irish fruit and vegetable crops.
There have been calls for Ireland to source more domestic workers, but when growers advertised 900 jobs last year only 40 were filled by Irish applicants.
The issue was raised by Sinn Féin TD Chris Andrews, who asked Mr Donnelly what measures ‘have been taken in relation to a repeat of the arrival of large volumes of seasonal workers into Ireland in the coming weeks given the quarantine process and public health guidelines for incoming travellers and workers’.
Mr Andrews also asked the minister if visitors for seasonal work ‘will be required to undertake mandatory quarantining’.
Responding, the Health Minister said: ‘Under the current regulations, only specific categories of travellers are exempt from completing mandatory testing and quarantine requirements.’ Mr Donnelly added: ‘There are currently no exemptions provided for seasonal agricultural workers.’
Instead, he warned: ‘Under the current travel measures, passengers arriving from overseas, including via Northern Ireland, are required to present a Covid19 Passenger Locator Form and produce evidence of a negative RT-PCR test taken within 72 hours of travel.’
The test result, he said, ‘must be shown prior to boarding the plane or ferry and once again to a border official upon arrival.’ Any travellers, he said, arriving without a pretravel PCR test result ‘must complete one within 36 hours of arrival at their own expense’.
Arriving workers, he said, are also required to quarantine for 14 days at the address provided on their Passenger Locator Form.
The minister said a second ‘nondetected’ PCR test result taken no less than five days after arrival can end the quarantine period. But he warned: ‘Certain countries are designated as category 2 states due to the concerns about the presence of SARS-CoV-2 variants and arrivals from these countries do not have the option to end the quarantine period early.’
One source noted: ‘It will be interesting to see how the quarantine system deals with thousands of fruit and vegetable pickers.’
JUSTICE Minister Helen McEntee will not have to resign her post as her role will be carried out by other ministers during her maternity leave, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
There is no provision for a Cabinet minister to take maternity leave and there had been speculation that Ms McEntee, who is due to have a baby in May, would have to temporarily resign her post after giving birth.
Ms McEntee has voiced her intention to take a proper maternity leave – until now women who give birth while serving as an Oireachtas member have taken ad hoc, informal leave.
However, sources at the top of Government told the MoS last night that Ms McEntee will not be required to temporarily resign for six months.
‘She definitely won’t have to resign from Cabinet,’ revealed a Cabinet minister involved in working out the details of organising cover. ‘So her duties will have to be divided up among other ministers.’
There is no plan to bring forward specific legislation, as was done in Britain last week to allow its attorney general Suella Braverman to take paid maternity leave without stepping down from her post. Parliament changed a law that would have required her to do so.
Britain does not have a written constitution. Ireland does. And Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said that a constitutional referendum would be required to change the provision that says there can only be 15 Cabinet ministers. That referendum cannot be held under Covid restrictions.
A minister told the MoS last night: ‘This is an Irish solution to an Irish problem. There should be proper provision for a woman taking maternity leave.
But there isn’t. So this is by its nature ad hoc.’ There was extra pressure within Government to consider asking Ms McEntee to step down temporarily because of the peculiarities of the position of Minister for Justice.
A Government official said: ‘The minister has to keep fully abreast of the national security situation. She has frequent briefings from the Garda Commissioner.
‘Also, say there is an urgent security issue, an attack on a Garda station, or a border incursion, the minister has to make instant decisions. That’s why, unlike other portfolios, it is difficult to divide up the position.’
Nevertheless, this is what will be done.
A junior minister, most likely James Browne, the Jumior Minister at the Department of Justice, will take many of the duties, which he can already perform, like taking parliamentary questions in the Dáil.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, attorney general Paul Gallagher and Department of the Taoiseach secretary general Martin Fraser have all been involved in talks with Ms McEntee.