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Minister Damien English has defended the essential and non-essential retail list, insisting that it is not confusing, despite Miriam O’Callaghan pointing out that he can “buy a bottle of wine, but no socks for my son.”
Socks come under clothes, Miriam. Clothing is not essential, “said the Minister of State for Labor Affairs and Retail Business while speaking on Prime Time after the RTÉ presenter called him” a little crazy. “
“I would consider them essential,” said Mrs. O’Callaghan with a laugh, and Minister English added: “And Vincent [Jennings, Chief Executive of the Convenience and Newsagents Association] I would consider a book essential – everyone has their own opinion on it. The whole goal behind this is to discourage the movement of people as much as possible. “
This came after Jennings confirmed that small retailers were being “warned” not to sell things like books, stationery, cards and wreaths.
“We are essential retailers and it is believed that we are since we sell food and beverages, newspapers and until now we have not had problems. But recently we are getting calls from people who say they are alerted by their local gardaí. They are told to either cover them with duct tape or remove them and stop selling them.
“It is not being applied in all areas; I am being contacted by other retailers within the same area who have not been visited at all and are selling the same products. We seek consistency here.
“Someone is going to have to define what is an essential good for me. If someone buys a crown to leave on the grave of a loved one as we approach All Saints Month; for some people that is something very important. We have to be sensible about this and fair. “
The English minister replied: “Once again, the virus is not fair.” He said the restrictions were temporary in nature and were in effect to protect the public.
“I know how frustrating it is for retailers, but it is temporary and there is a list that says what is essential and what is not. It’s not confusing, I think we’ve already had these discussions with retailers numerous times. “
Independent TD Michael McNamara questioned the need for the restrictions, saying:
“Fortunately, in each of the last seven days the cases have been lower than the corresponding days last week. Last Wednesday Philip Nolan, head of the modeling team at Nphet, said it would be three weeks before we see an impact from Level 5 restrictions unless people have already changed their behavior.
“Well, if people have already changed their behavior, then why are we shutting down retail and putting 55,000 people on Pandemic Unemployment Pay?
“At some point we have to trust people to decide what is essential.
“I can understand that normally pajamas are not essential, but I received an email this week from a lady preparing to go to the Maternity Hospital in Limerick and wanted to get pajamas in advance and she couldn’t, and was upset.
“We have to trust people at some point and I’m not convinced this is a good use of garda time keeping an eye on this.”
MP McNamara also said that when retail moves online, it forces local businesses to compete with multinational giants and draws money from the Irish economy.
“The concern about this is that many retailers are now going online and we know that when that happens, many of the retailers are large conglomerates that are not based in Ireland, do not pay taxes or employ people in Ireland.”
English said there was a bit of room for maneuver in certain scenarios and “there are rules, but we see common sense and there is a bit of discretion, but we have to try to protect people.”
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