Taoiseach Micheál Martin became involved in a bust up with Labour leader Alan Kelly in the Dáil yesterday.
The pair became embroiled in a bust up after TD Alan Kelly claimed that Mr Martin had told him that teachers would be exempt from the new rule, that close contacts of positive Covid cases must restrict their movements for five days.
What Kelly said is a“complete misconstruction” – Taoiseach
Following this claim from Alan Kelly, the Taoiseach called it a “complete misconstruction”.
“There was none. Alan Kelly now, look there was no exchange in the Dail about this at all”, an angry Micheál Martin said.
He continued, “It wasn’t in the Chamber at all. I had a very brief, I would say 40 second, engagement. We talked about schools. I spoke to him. It’s a complete misconstruction”.
“I made it very clear that regardless of vaccination status, household close contacts will restrict movement for five days pending completion of an antigen test”, the Taoiseach added. “There is no one except for it. I was a bit taken back about how that was constructed”.
Alan Kelly insisted that the Taoiseach did tell him that teachers were indeed exempt from the rule. The Labour leader added that the Government later changed their minds after making a mistake.
“It’s obvious that as a result of my colleague and our Education Spokesperson Aodhan O’Riordain bringing this to public attention that the government reversed position rapidly”, he said.
“It says so much about the incoherence of this government that policy changes by the hour, and at some stages they don’t know what u-turn they are even reversing”.
This comes as the Taoiseach addressed the nation yesterday to announce the reimposition of certain restrictions in order to ease the spike in Covid-19 case numbers.
“This is the fourth surge – but it is different – and the vaccination programme has allowed us to keep society open”, the Taoiseach said. More on that story here.
