Representatives from the hospitality sector will meet with Government officials today to discuss how new indoor dining rules will be enforced.
Indoor dining is set to resume for fully vaccinated people and those that have recently recovered from Covid sometime before July 26th.
The Digital Covid Cert will act as proof of vaccination and HSE compliance officers will be visiting premises to check that only vaccinated people are eating inside.
Tanaiste Leo Varadkar says children will be allowed to dine indoors.
“There is only one deviation – that we will allow accompanied minors to attend indoor hospitality with their parent or guardian.
“But, on advice, this does mean that social distancing rules will continue to apply indoors as they did last summer.”
There are provisions in the bill to permit people who test negative for the virus to eat indoors; however, the Government says more work is needed on that.
The legislation now needs to be passed by the Dáil and Seanad this week before being signed into law by the President.
There will be fines of up to €2,000 for forging the certificate and potential fines for restaurants and pubs who fail to carry out checks.
People Before Profit TD and member of the health committee, Gino Kenny thinks indoor dining should not resume until September.
"You look at what's happened in Britain and Britain are 4 to 6 weeks ahead of us, where we are. They will have up to 100,000 cases a day by the first week in August. The gains we've made over the last six, seven months... are we going to risk all this in the next 6 to 7 weeks."
