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The full return to offices is being delayed until next spring in response to rising Covid-19 cases, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.
Setting out changes to the Government’s planned lifting of coronavirus restrictions, Mr Varadkar said “a staggered and phased return to the office” was still possible but a full return to offices – “as we knew them”– would not happen until the spring of 2022.
Under the previous reopening plan announced at the end of August, the Government planned to remove the requirement to work from home from October 22nd permitting workers to return to workplaces where they had worked from home on a phased and cautious basis.
The National Public Health Emergency Team advised the Government that the return to the workplace should continue on a “phased and cautious basis” but recommended that “all who can work from home should continue to do so”.
“A staggered and phased return to the office is possible so people going back to the office for a specific business purpose like a meeting or training, for example, or inductions, that is allowed,” said Mr Varadkar.
“Certainly people who can work from home and want to continue to work from home, their employer should facilitate that.’
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment said there had been people “working from home with a laptop on a bed for 18 months now” and that they really wanted to return to the office.
“If that can be facilitated, if they can be in an office on their own or in an office where they are socially distanced from other people, that should be facilitated too,” he said.
Mr Varadkar said the Government would be meeting trade unions and employer groups on Tuesday to update work safety protocols over the coming days.
Nphet cautioned in its letter to Government that public health restrictions may have to be reintroduced if the newly recommended measures did not suppress the spread of the virus.
The health team stressed the importance of employers encouraging workers to self-isolate if they are showing symptoms of Covid-19 and said employees should not be disincentivised by employers if they identify themselves as symptomatic and have to stay at home.
Home-working had played “a very important role” in containing the spread of Covid-19 throughout the pandemic, Nphet said.
It said there were 19 workplace Covid-19 outbreaks reported in the latest weekly figures, including five in food or meat production facilities and four in the construction sector.