Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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169. To ask the Minister for Trade, Enterprise and Employment if the decision to categorise greeting cards as non-essential services in the level 5 Covid-19 lockdown will be reversed (details supplied); if greeting cards will be restored to the list of essential services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36990/20]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Under Level 5 of the Plan for Living with COVID-19, only essential retail outlets will remain open.

S.I. No. 448 of 2020 Health Act 1947 (Section 31A - Temporary Restrictions) (COVID-19) (No. 8) Regulations 2020 clearly sets out the temporary restrictions under Level 5 of the Resilience and Recovery 2020-2021: Plan for Living with COVID. A list of essential services can be found at and the list of essential retail outlets at Level 5 can be found at .

Level 5 restricts people from physically going into non-essential stores in order to stop people congregating and browsing for non-essential goods, to limit the spread of the virus. All retailers – essential and non-essential – can however continue to trade via ‘remote ordering’ and fulfil orders for all products including non-essential items, by online or by phone, for home delivery and for collection.

Mixed retailers have been asked to separate their stock and only sell the items that are essential. This is to encourage all of us to stay at home and shop local and to ensure fairness to those non-essential retailers who have had to close.

I and my colleague Minister of State English met with the Retail Forum members on 21 October to remind those in the retail sector, of the need for strict adherence to the public health guidelines during Level 5. Minister English met again with the Retail Forum members and major multiple grocery retailers on 28 October and Retail Forum members and representatives of the retail grocery and distribution sector on 4 and 13 November to reinforce this message.

I would like to thank retailers and their customers for their efforts at this difficult time. By each of us following the spirit of these new rules and working together we can hopefully return to a lower level of the Living with Covid-19 framework.