Leo Varadkar has slammed any chance of drinking on the streets as he confirmed pints with “lids” are now completely banned.
Ther Tánaiste said “it is not on,” hammering home the initial warning from Taoiseach Micheál Martin last night to “forget the pints” for this Level Five lockdown.
In the meantime Mr Varadkar, the Government deputy leader, has promised we will soon be seeing 60,000 vaccinations a week in the Government’s drive to immunise the nation against Covid.
The vaccines news will be warmly welcomed by a public shocked at the low initial level of jabs rollout, which is reported to be just 4,000 a week at the moment.
The Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader said that the raft of new vaccines coming down the tracks will enable the health authorities to massively ramp up the vaccination programme.
“We’re off to a slower start…. But we will catch up.
He added: “We’re going to produce numbers on those vaccinated, that should be around 35,000 this week, mostly healthcare workers, but also people in nursing homes.
“That will be rising to about 40,000 from next week and with Moderna coming on line that will probably be up to about 60,000 per week.”
Mr Varadkar also told Newstalk this morning that the Government will be firmly putting the lid on outdoor drinking during the third lockdown.
He said: “It seems that publicans tried to get around it (the wet pubs closure) by serving a pint and putting a lid on it, and like, that’s not on.
“We don’t want to have to shut down the off licences and the pubs and say, you know, you can’t sell bottles of beer, you can’t sell cans for people to take home.
“But they seem to be trying to get around it by giving out a traditional pint with a lid on it…. We’re certainly going to reinforce the existing ban on people drinking outdoors on public streets.”
