‘Minister for Beer Gardens’ Leo ‘Infuriating’ Opposition With ‘Fantasy’ Plans

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Leo Varadkar and beer

Labour party TD Aodháin Ó’Riordain has blasted Leo Varadkar as the ‘Minister for Beer Gardens‘ and criticised his comments about re-opening the economy in the Dáil yesterday.

Tanaiste Varadkar suggested certain realsm of the economy will be able to re-open from March the 5th, when the current level 5 lockdown measures will end as scheduled to.

This morning the Dáil debated a Labour party motion calling for an aggressive clampdown on community transmission of the Coronavirus to get as close as possible to ‘Zero COVID‘.

It comes as the government is revising its ‘living with COVID plan’, with a new version to be released in two weeks when we’ll find out what restrictions will be eased if any, on the first Friday in March.

Yesterday Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said he hoped construction would open, and people may be able to meet outdoors.

In the absence of concrete plans, Labour’s Aodhan O’Riordain says the Tanaiste has again been undermining the national effort: “The Minister for Beer Gardens comes out and furthers his own personal agenda, again making things worse talking about potential re-opening of family gatherings, of industry potentially reopening, in no way recognising the fact that we are in the teeth of a body count!

The opposition is united in calling for full mandatory hotel quarantine for people coming into Ireland, with the Tánaiste suggesting the current list of two countries could be expanded.

Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall is among those who have criticised the Tánaiste for kite flying before decisions are made:

It is infuriating to hear the Tanaiste musing about, eh you know, parts of the country or the economy opening up. This is fantasy stuff! Unless we change the strategy and pursue rigourous zero-covid stategy we are facing rolling lock-downs at least ’till the end of this year and potentially further.”