GPs will not be included in the bonus payment for frontline healthcare workers, the Department of Health has said.

Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly’s spokesman confirmed the €1,000 pandemic bonus, announced yesterday, will not be paid to GPs, despite their role in the pandemic.

The Government is also facing calls from representatives of home carers, pharmacy workers, frontline staff in private hospitals and other groups to be included in the scheme.

Hospital Report

The department was unable to supply a definitive list of qualifying roles and grades, pointing instead to categories of workers included in the press release issued. But Ministers immediately faced calls from representative groups for more clarity, while Opposition parties and unions said the scheme should be extended.

Calls to extend €1,000 pandemic bonus to retail staff, pharmacists and carers

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Restrictions

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said payments would be made to “roughly 100,000 healthcare workers”.

The Government also announced an additional public holiday on March 18th this year – making for a four-day St Patrick’s weekend – before moving to the first Monday in February from next year, marking St Brigid’s Day.

Meanwhile, the National Public Health Emergency Team meets today, with the group expected to give the go-ahead for announcements tomorrow on the lifting of restrictions, likely to begin next week.

Coalition figures believe the momentum on unwinding restrictions is now near-irreversible. Taoiseach Micheál Martin told his Fianna Fáil parliamentary party last night that tomorrow he would make things “very clear . . . for now and also for the medium term”.