Coronavirus: 16 more fatalities brings death toll to 1,561

Another 16 patients have died from Covid-19, the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has reported. There have now been a total of 1,561 Covid-19 related deaths in the Republic.

The number of confirmed cases in the Republic has risen by 51 to 24,251.

Over the past week 36,818 tests were carried out, with 932 coming back positive - a positivity rate of 2.5 per cent, Nphet reported. Some 295,626 coronavirus tests have been carried out since the start of the pandemic up to midnight on Monday.

In Northern Ireland, the deaths of seven more people from Covid-19 were announced on Tuesday, taking the total death toll in the North to 489.

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The North’s Department of Health reported that 20 more people tested positive for coronavirus bringing the total number of confirmed cases in Northern Ireland to 4,441.

The latest figures come as the Oireachtas committee on Covid-19 heard from its first witnesses on Tuesday.

Among those giving evidence were construction industry representatives who said that new measures to tackle the spread of Covid -19 on building sites would add up to €15,000 to the cost of a house.

The director general of the Construction Industry Federation Tom Parlon told the Oireachtas committee on Covid-19 on Tuesday that across Europe it was estimated that safety measures could add 10-15 per cent to building costs.

He said one substantial builder had told him that the new measures could add €10,000- €15,000 to the cost of a house.

Mr Parlon suggested that in the case of apartments , where achieving physical distancing was more difficult, the additional cost could be up to €20,000.

He said where the timescale for building a house had traditionally been 15 weeks, with the new safety measures this could increase to 25 weeks.

Malaria drug advice

The committee heard on Tuesday from a range of health officials, as well as representatives of trade unions and employers.

The HSE told members of the committee it was not recommending the use of hydroxychloroquine to protect against Covid-19 because of the cardiac side effects in particular.

HSE chief clinical lead Dr Colm Henry said there had been a some small studies on the drug which to date had not shown any benefit.

He had been asked about the drug after US president Donald Trump’s disclosure that he was taking the anti-malarial medication in the belief that it would protect him against transmission of coronavirus.

Earlier, the State’s chief medical officer said that the HSE should not be giving Covid-19 test results of employees to employers, calling it “a breach of confidentiality, full stop”.

His criticism of the practice came after Minister for Health Simon Harris admitted that in some cases it had been “necessary in the interests of public health” to convey test results directly to managers of meat plants with outbreaks before workers were told to send them home quickly.

Return to work

On the economic impact of the lockdown, Mr Parlon said there would be “no big bang” return to work by construction firms, and it would take months for the sector to reach previous output levels.

He noted larger contractors had allowed a reduced workforce on site on Monday to assess sites, test new measures and embed new protocols in safety culture.

The CIF said any companies that had been able to operate over the past month working on essential services had operated new safety measures.

“Reports are positive,” it said, but implementation of procedures “is challenging and companies are reporting a significant drop in productivity”.

The general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions Patricia King said the Government must ensure that the monitoring of workplaces by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) was fully resourced in order to protect workers and prevent a further spread of the virus.

She said HSE inspectors had extensive powers of enforcement, including the power to serve a “prohibition notice” on any workplace, in which activity was occurring which posed a serious risk to the health and safety of any person.

“In our view this power should be exercised vigorously in respect to any workplace in which the terms of this protocol are not being observed.”

HSA chief executive Sharon McGuinness told the committee that it had 67 inspectors assigned to monitor the operation of the back-to-work national safety protocol.

She indicated that the HSA may not be able to carry out surprise inspections due to restrictions to protect against Covid-19.

Ms King said she did not believe that 67 HSA inspectors was an adequate number and the Government needed to increase the resources available to the authority.

Ms McGuinness said she was confident that additional resources that were needed would be made available.

Outside of the hearings, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said Ireland would only find out in the second half of the year what level of financial contribution it may be required to make to a €500 billion European recovery fund.

Mr Donohoe said only then would we know if the country would directly benefit but he added that confidence in the future of the union would indirectly help an open Irish economy.

The fund has been proposed by France and Germany as a solution to how European countries might weather the financial storm caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

It would see the European Commission borrow money on financial markets to bolster the seven-year EU budget beginning in 2021.