TD: ‘Cop on, you could kill older people’

A GOVERNMENT junior minister has warned that younger people may think they are ‘superman’ but they are ‘vectors for this disease that is going to kill older people’.

Limerick TD and junior minister for the Office of Public Works Patrick O’Donovan was speaking yesterday as the World Health Organization warned that the pandemic is now being driven by younger people.

On RTÉ’s Today with Sarah McInerney, Mr O’Donovan asked people to ‘cop on’ and ‘use a small bit of sense’.

‘I have vulnerable adults in my own family and what I am seeing online in the last couple of weeks, where people have no regard to elderly people with that carry on, whether it is in Kilkee or whether it is in Dublin,’ he said.

Mr O’Donovan took particular issue with the scenes in the Dublin bar Berlin D2 over the weekend, adding that he would be ‘very anxious’ that licences of pubs would be revoked for incidents like that.

‘Younger people might think they are Superman going around but they are vectors for this disease that is going to kill older people,’ he said. ‘I think there is a bigger issue in relation to the congregating of some people in the middle of the night thinking they are in Ibiza when they are in west Clare or west Kerry.’

‘These people need to cop on, they are spreading this disease and are going to be responsible for people dying – and the sooner they get that message the better,’ he added.

According to a WHO tally, there have been more than 21.7 million infections of Covid-19 worldwide resulting in over 771,000 deaths.