Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I cannot comment on the Department of Health scheme that covers healthcare workers, as I do not know the ins and outs of it. However, we all agree that healthcare workers faced specific dangers and vulnerabilities that were different from those faced by many other workers who, we suspect, contracted Covid mainly through community transmission. Covid, as the World Health Organization has recognised, is now endemic. It is an illness similar in status to the flu, for example, in that it causes significant problems but we have a degree of control over it. It is important to say that.

Having discussed this with officials, the advice I have received is that Covid simply does not fit under the Social Welfare Act in terms of eligibility illnesses.

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