New advice suggests TDs can’t spend longer than two hours in a day inside the Dáil chamber.
The COVID-19 committee has been given medical advice saying is someone spends more than 2 hours in an enclosed space, even with reduced numbers, they’ll be considered a contact.with someone they are considered a contact for public health purposes.
So if 20 TDs spent 3 hours meeting, and over the next two days one of them developed symptoms, all 20 would have to self-isolate for 2 weeks.
It would mean no TD could be in the chamber for more than 2 hours in a day, which poses headaches for how Ministerial or Taoiseach’s Questions would work and how the Ceann Comhairle would operate.
But it also poses the question, if that’s the advice for the enclosed chamber of the Dáil, why isn’t it the advice for shops or other workplaces?
The COVID committee will consider the advice at a teleconference meeting tomorrow.
