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On Friday, March 27th, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar announced the latest government restriction in the fight against coronavirus. The latest decision is that everyone should stay at home until April 12th, 2020.
Under the latest public health guidelines, people may only leave their homes in the following situations:
- To travel to and from work, or for purposes of work, only where it’s an essential health, social care or other essential service and cannot be done from home.
- For vital family reasons. This includes providing care to children, elderly or vulnerable people.
- To attend medical appointments and collect medicines and other health products.
- To shop for household goods, essential food, beverage or collect a meal.
- To take brief individual physical exercise within two kilometres of your home. Children from your household may also go with you as long as you adhere to strict two-metre physical distancing.
- For farming purposes, that is food production or care of animals.
The government had previously advised that all employees, where possible, should work from home. This advice remains in place.
What action should your business take?
The first step is to refer to the public health guidelines to see if your business qualifies as an essential service provider. If it does, notify employees that they are still required to work.
Any employees (including sub-contractors) who are required to work should be provided with a letter confirming that you’re their employer and that they’re permitted to travel to work as they’re an essential worker.
What action should employees take?
Essential employees, or employees that belong to a category of essential employees, are still allowed to travel to and from work.
When travelling to and from work, these essential employees should bring either work identification or the letter from your business outlined above. They should also bring one other form of identification.
