The reopening of indoor dining on July 5 is looking more unlikely as people fear the Government will delay the reopening until later this month - due to an increased number of cases of the Delta variant.
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) is working on advice that will be given to the Government next week.
The Delta variant is expected to become the most dominant variant of the virus in Ireland in the coming months, with officials saying it will account for more than half of all cases by mid-July.
Although unlikely, NPHET may recommend to the Government that the reopening can go ahead as planned as overall Covid case numbers remain low.
Government ministers are due to meet next Thursday, July 1, to make a decision following NPHET advice on whether or not indoor dining will be allowed to resume.
Appearing on Virgin Media One today, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said: “I can’t speculate right now, today, in relation to this, other than [to say] it is an area of concern to the chief medical officer, to everybody, to myself included.
“But I just want to make the point that so far, we have managed to reopen society in a cautious but progressive way, and a lot of people are satisfied and relatively happy with the manner in which that’s happened.
“They don’t want that jeopardised or undermined in any way either, and anything we open, we want to keep open. We don’t want to be going back.
“That’s the important principles that has to inform any decisions in light of any advice we might receive from the Chief Medical Officer and from NPHET, who have to do some modelling of this Delta variant.”
Hope remains that the reopening will go ahead as RCSI’s Professor Sam McConkey, head of the Department of International Health and Tropical Medicine, said he is ‘hopeful’ that indoor dining will resume on July 5.
Speaking on RTE's Prime Time last night, he said, "I think it’s certainly hopeful, let’s say that that will happen again a bit like we had last year when you had to give your contact details, so it's possible to do contact tracing and tables set apart and good ventilation and people sitting down.
I think with some sensible restrictions, I’m optimistic and hopeful that will go ahead.”
