Undertakers call for status change to frontline staff
FUNERAL directors are appealing to be recognised as frontline workers and to be moved higher up the ladder for priority for the Covid vaccine.
They called for the change amid claims that they are putting their ‘lives at risk several times a week’ while doing their job.
It comes after undertakers in Northern Ireland and Britain successfully lobbied the British government to upgrade their status.
The Irish Association of Funeral Directors this week backed calls by a funeral director here for the Irish Government to recognise staff in the sector as frontline workers.
Liam Whelehan, who works in his family business in Portarlington and Stradbally in Co. Laois, said: ‘Including those who work in the funeral director business as frontline workers just makes perfect sense but nobody seems to have thought about us.
‘We are regularly in and out of nursing homes, deal directly with bodies [of those] who have died from Covid, meet their close contacts such as family members, regularly encounter GPs, doctors, nurses, and care assistants who would have been close contacts of a Covid victim, so really how much more frontline can we be?
‘It’s not just in our interests either, after all, we meet a lot of people when organising the actual funeral from the families themselves, to medical staff, priests, mortuary attendants, and countless others.
‘We may not have the official recognition as frontline workers but we are very much frontline and I’d argue with anyone that we should be prioritised for the vaccine.’
Mr Whelehan said some gatherings for funerals did breach Covid rules but that funeral directors are not there to enforce guidelines.
‘In general, people have been excellent adhering to the required guidelines at funerals but some old traditions die hard, especially with the older generation, and more often than not the first thing they do is come up and shake hands with the undertaker.’
Niall Mulligan, of Heffernan’s undertakers in Trim, Co. Meath, said: ‘We meet several families each week and the more interaction the higher the risk of catching the virus – it is no exaggeration to say we put our lives on the line as much as any frontline worker.’
Mary Cunniffe of IAFD said that the group is currently trying to get their concerns heard.
‘We are actively lobbying the minister to have our members upgraded to frontline status and to have them vaccinated as a priority group.’