Micheál Martin has said that the purchase of children’s clothing could be justified on “compassionate grounds".
The Taoiseach was confronted on the bonkers stance the Government is taking where a parent cannot go out to a High Street shop and buy new socks for babies during lockdown.
Children’s clothing is not considered an ‘essential’ good or service, so retailers are barred from selling them during Level 5 of lockdown.
But at the same time someone can buy as much of something else that is considered an essential good under the Government’s guidelines, such as booze.
Mr Martin was asked about the opportunities for parents to buy socks for their children and he said: “No-one has stopped trading, I mean the Government has been very supportive in terms of businesses from the beginning in terms of online vouchers for example to facilitate online shopping, which has grown exponentially since the pandemic.
“There is also ‘click ‘n’ collect’ whereby many shops are providing the service where you can ring, make a call and say I want X and Y and you go and collect it then at the shop at a particular time.
“And also Community Call - a Government programme where the elderly and vulnerable can have messages and shopping done for them by gardaí or community friends - is available, and also shops do deliveries as well.
“So I think there are modalities and ways and means for people to get access to a variety of goods and services that I’ve just described.
“In the first lockdown it worked and it will I expect in the current one as well.”
The Taoiseach added: “Children will be able to get clothes…… the capacity does exist to be able to get both essential and what might be termed non-essential goods and services across the board.”
Earlier, Paschal Donohoe was refusing to back down on children’s socks.
The Minister for Finance was not for turning when asked about the issue by RTE news anchor, Bryan Dobson.
The Minister said: “We also have a broader responsibility, which is the broader responsibility of how we protect the public health of those that we serve, and additional economic responsibilities regarding fairness to those who have made decisions that has now led to the closure of businesses.
“And what we are looking to do is to reconcile all of those agendas and then to do our best as we work our way through this to deal with issues as they develop.”
