Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I said in response to an earlier question from Deputy Doherty, the Government has not failed throughout the pandemic to intervene in an unprecedented way to support businesses, including hospitality businesses, throughout the country. The EWSS has been the most successful and effective scheme in underpinning companies. It is an economy-wide scheme. The Government is keeping it under review in light of current circumstances.

Deputy Kelly asked me about the Omicron variant in the context of education. I did not get the chance to say to the Dáil yesterday that one case has been confirmed and that the Chief Medical Officer has issued a statement in respect of that. One case has been confirmed from the S-gene deletion cases we spoke about yesterday. In that context, we will keep the economic support interventions under review. We understand fully the EWSS affects about a quarter of employers in hospitality.

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