Covid-19: Michael McGrath set to brief Cabinet on financial costs

After a two-week hiatus, semi-normal Government business will resume this week, kicking off with a Cabinet meeting at 10am today.

The weekly gathering is expected to take place at Dublin Castle with all Ministers in attendance after months of it being split between different rooms in Government Buildings because of the risks posed by the pandemic.

Although the forthcoming further easing of Covid-19 restrictions will not be announced until next week, Ministers will be keen to let their views be known about what the summer reopening roadmap should include.

Acutely aware of the ongoing cost of maintaining restrictions and extending welfare supports, Minister for Public Expenditure Michael McGrath will reveal some eye-watering figures to his colleagues.

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Spending is thought to be €500 million ahead of projected targets for the first three months of the year. Some €19.5 billion had been spent to the end of March, including €3 billion on the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme.

McGrath is expected to tell colleagues there has been a significant draw on contingency funds, slightly cushioned by around €120 million less in spending on capital projects.

Many Ministers are looking at the Covid-19 statistics with growing hope that the country is finally getting ahead of the virus. But as and if the pressure eases in that sense, difficult decisions will have to be made later in the summer about potential cut-off dates for the various welfare supports.

Here is a report on the other matters due to come before Cabinet this morning, including a much-awaited piece of legislation to tackle ticket touting.

Back in the land of Covid-19, the debate this week is likely to centre on the pros and cons around increasing the length of time between the first and second doses of the vaccine.

As we report in our lead, the jury is very much out.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has sought the advice of Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn, and the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac) on the possibility.

However, Dr Denis McCauley, GP chair of the Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), said he believed such a step would not greatly accelerate the timelines of the vaccination programme. He said modelling showing an “enormous, obvious difference” would have to be published to support such a move.

In the end, the Government will likely wait until later in the week, once the European Medicines Agency issues an opinion on the single-shot J&J vaccine.

But there is a view among some senior figures in Government that increasing the spacing would make sense and bolster the speed of the rollout. Politics vs public health again? We will see.

Sinn Féin’s database woes

Sinn Féin has come under pressure in recent days over a database it maintains that records a person’s level of support for the party and when they last voted.

The party has said repeatedly that its Abú canvassing system is merely the electoral register that is made available to political parties and elected representatives.

As Pat Leahy reports today, Sinn Féin has denied it is "data mining" from Facebook and other social media sites to enhance its voter database.

The party has so far declined to say where in the EU the database is hosted and who has access – despite being repeatedly pressed by reporters.

Sinn Féin is currently engaged in a dialogue with the Data Protection Commissioner who has raised a number of questions about various aspects of the database. A decision on whether or not to go ahead with a further investigation could come as early as this week, so this is one to watch.

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Playbook

The Dáil doesn’t return until tomorrow, but there is plenty of action at the committees to keep everyone busy. The Joint Committee on European Affairs meets at 9.30am to hear from Thierry Breton, the commissioner for the Internal Market with the European Commission. They will discuss, among other issues, vaccine production and digital transformation.

The Joint Committee on Disability Matters will meet at the same time to discuss the National Disability Inclusion Strategy. A big-ticket item on the committee agenda is the meeting of the Joint Committee on Health at 3.30pm. The chief clinical officer with the HSE, Dr Colm Henry, will join the chairwoman of Niac, Karina Butler, to give TDs and senators an update on the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.

At the later hour of 7.15pm, Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien will come before the Joint Committee on Housing to discuss, well, housing. There are a good few other committees meeting, publicly and privately, and for those curious the information on those can be found here.