Strategy in place to keep shelves stocked, says Minister

Robust plans are in place to ensure goods remain on our shelves even as supply chains come under pressure, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has said.

People should be “confident”of this, he said on Monday. “But this is something that we will have to monitor and act on every day. We are in a situation with supply chains that are coming under pressure, for many different reasons.”

The State will continue to liaise with the transport sector and retailers, said Mr Donohoe. Moreover there is an expectation that for the reasons linked to the pandemic, and potentially others, this could be an issue that will require continual work in the coming days and weeks.

Mr Donohoe was visiting the new TU Dublin campus at Grangegorman, in his constituency, alongside his Fine Gael colleague Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris.

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“There are things that are happening that could be beyond our control, in terms of decisions that are made elsewhere. But we will continue . . . to protect the functioning of supply chains,” he said.

As Irish exporters and hauliers using the UK land bridge continue to grapple with the fallout of a decision to restrict entry for accompanied freight at French ports, Mr Harris called for Europe to "act in unison" if possible.

The Wicklow TD said that while it was the right of any sovereign government to take actions to keep their citizens safe, it would be "helpful" to have a co-ordinated approach. "We are a European Union [and] . . . it would be extraordinarily helpful if in the coming hours and days there could be as much co-ordination and cohesion in terms of response" across the bloc.

The French government has indicated it will make a statement on transit later today, said Mr Donohoe.

Mr Harris urged those who had been socialising in recent days to reconsider their plans for Christmas in the context the surging virus in Ireland and news from the United Kingdom about a mutation that seems to jump from one person to another more easily.

“What we don’t want to happen is to see a new strain of virus taken against the backdrop of very significant intergenerational mixing. If that were to happen, I think it could be extremely concerning,” he said.

“If you’ve been out in pubs and restaurants, if having people into the house and if you’ve had a lot of social contracts, you need to think long and hard about whether you want to come into contact with vulnerable relatives . . . over the Christmas period.”

What about schools?

There are no plans to alter the school calender for next year, he said, adding that the Government intends to start rolling out vaccines before the end of December. “What we need to do . . . is make sure everyone’s alive long enough to get the vaccine.”

Mr Donohoe defended the Government’s decision to open up hospitality earlier this month. He said it was done “in the context of the spread of the disease being suppressed. What we are now finding is the situation has changed. And just [because] the Government made a decision there a number of weeks ago that it believed was the right decision . . . circumstances change [and] we do always have to decide whether those decisions are still appropriate . . . to protecting the health of our country.”