Tanaiste Leo Varadkar has told Fine Gael TDs that he is “sceptical” that imposing new restrictions on people’s lives would be warranted at this time.
While Taoiseach Micheal Martin said “we must keep calm” while more data emerges on the Omicron variant.
At the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting on Wednesday night, Mr Varadkar noted that the situation was stable or improving slightly and “we were doing substantially better than NPHET optimistic models and projections in terms of cases, numbers in hospital, ICU and deaths.”
He told TDs for this reason, he was sceptical that imposing new restrictions on people’s freedoms, family life and businesses would be warranted at this time.
However, he said there was a concern though that the Covid-19 situation has stabilised at a high level and if things went wrong in the run up to Christmas, they would go wrong from a very high base.
Party sources said there was a “genuine cause for concern” with people socialising more with Christmas and “the Government would carefully listen to NPHET’s advice on the matter tomorrow before making any decisions.”
Taoiseach Micheal Martin told the Fianna Fail parliamentary party meeting that the current wave has stabilised with cases, hospitalisation and ICU is levelling off.
But he said there are high case numbers with the Delta wave and “cases can flip in the wrong direction very quickly so we remain concerned.”
He told party TDs that 48% of those in hospital with Covid are unvaccinated and 50% in ICU.
Mr Martin told the meeting that he spoke to the President of the European Commission on Wednesday evening, Ursula Von Der Leyen.
She has stated that it will take two weeks to fully assess the impact of the Omicron variant on transmissibility, severity and vaccine escape.
A ‘HERO’ group has been established in the European Commission to assess this and there is ongoing contact with vaccine manufacturers.
He told TDs “we must keep calm, remain cautious and await the science.
“We need a combination of vigilance, reduced socialisation and an accelerated booster campaign.”
