Dr. Tony Holohan breaks the silence on whether clothing should be an essential item



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Dr. Tony Holohan has broken his silence on the government’s controversial claim that clothing “is not essential” and cannot be sold in stores across the country.

Minister Damien English made the statement last night explaining what retailers can and cannot sell under Level Five restrictions.

The Minister of State for Employment and Retail Trade intervened in RTE’s Prime Time where he defended the essential list.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has been among those who have criticized the decision.

She wrote on Twitter: “Clothing is essential. Common sense is also essential, although it is in short supply in the FF / FG government.”

Minister Damien English in RTE Primetime

And now the medical director has given his opinion on the matter after being questioned at a press conference tonight.

Dr. Holohan said, “You can look down at the individual rules and have discussions about the measures that are in place at that level.

“But the measures that exist at the moment have a purpose and we are identifying what type of activity we need to maintain, what objectives we have as a society.

“And the decision that has been made is that things like full-time educational activities for children and access to child care for young children have a useful effect of protecting the workforce from health and keeping them at work, providing health services to people who need them for things other than Covid and protecting vulnerable people.

“These are the really important activities and these are the types of activities that we must maintain during these six weeks, essential activities, as well as your own exercise or individual activity within a radius of 5 km.

Dr. Tony Holohan, Medical Director.

“Going to the stores to buy basic food or things like that, those are the essential activities.

“The purpose of this six week period is for each of us to stop doing the things that we would normally do and consider that during this time period as discretionary.

“Which is not to say that we are evaluating a particular retail or sporting activity and saying that somehow it doesn’t have some kind of value, that is to say that if we are going to protect those other things and keep the activity around childcare and health care, there are other forms of activity that we must stop for a period of time if we want to break the chains of transmission.

“And that is the fundamental reason, it is not that a value judgment is being made on one type of product or another, it simply is not the level at which this consideration arises.”



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