Sectoral guidance regarding Level 5 of the Plan for Living with COVID-19

Ireland is now at Level 5 of the government’s Plan for Living with COVID-19. This document may be subject to change.

The Minister is cognisant of the significant impact the COVID-19 crisis has and continues to have on the sectors her department supports. The recent announcement of the move to Level 5 of the government’s Plan for Living with COVID-19 means that many of the sectors within the department’s remit will effectively cease to operate for the six weeks duration of Level 5. This is because the public health risk is deemed such that people are being asked to stay at home, apart from essential workers, or children and teachers going to school.

This is necessary to limit our contacts and avoid congregating.

The reasons for this are to:

• protect medically and socially vulnerable people
• prevent unnecessary disruption to non-COVID health and social care services
• prevent further disruption to childcare and education

Tourism, Culture, Arts and Sports and Gaeltacht activities usually involve audiences and people congregating. This is the very thing the government is trying to minimise.

We need to reduce the number of people congregating across a range of settings in order to reduce the spread of the virus. The more we work together to reduce the level of the virus circulating - the more activity we will be able to have in our communities.

This is a key principle underpinning the 5 Levels of the government’s Plan for Living with COVID-19.

As such, the following arrangements apply under the Level 5 restrictions announced on 19 October:

• people are asked to stay at home
• people should work from home unless providing an essential service for which their physical presence is required
• people will be permitted to exercise within a radius of 5 kilometres of their home. This will be a penal provision, that is, people moving outside their 5 kilometre radius can be fined
• Item was unpublished or removed and essential services will remain open
• there should be no organised indoor or outdoor events
• museums, galleries and other cultural attractions will remain closed
• bars, cafes, restaurants and wet pubs may provide take-away and delivery services only. Wet pubs in Dublin remain closed
• hotels, guesthouses and B&Bs may remain open, but only to support provision of essential services
• weddings are permitted to have 25 guests at the ceremony and reception, excluding the couple getting married and those employed at the wedding
• 25 people may attend funeral ceremonies only; no provision is made for receptions after a funeral
• in line with current NPHET advice in respect of Level 5, professional, elite sports and senior inter-county Gaelic games, horse-racing and greyhound racing can continue behind closed doors
• in recognition of the impact on children and young people of restrictions, non-contact training can continue for school aged children, outdoors in pods of 15. Children may travel outside their 5 kilometre radius to attend training
• all other training activities should be individual only

The following section sets out the conditions under Level 5 of the Plan in more detail.

Organised indoor gatherings

No organised indoor gatherings should take place.

These are controlled environments with a named event organiser, owner or manager.

For example: business, training events, conferences, events in theatres and cinemas or other arts events (excluding sport).

Organised outdoor gatherings

No organised outdoor gatherings should take place.

These are controlled environments with a named event organiser, owner or manager.

For example: outdoor Arts events, training events.

Weddings (regardless of venue)

Up to 25 guests for ceremony and reception (excluding staff).

Funerals

Up to 25 mourners.

Exercise and sporting events

Training

Individual training only. No exercise or dance classes can take place.

Exceptions:

In line with current NPHET advice in respect of Level 5, professional, elite sports and senior inter-county Gaelic games, horse-racing and greyhound racing can continue behind closed doors.

Non-contact “organised training” for school-aged children may continue, outdoors and in pods of 15.

Children can travel outside their 5 kilometre limit to attend “organised training”, which is defined as:

• to be held in preparation for a sporting event, and
• that is supervised by a member of staff of Sport Ireland, a coach or a trainer

Matches and events

No matches or events to take place with the exception of professional and elite sport/senior inter-county/horse-racing and greyhound racing, which can take place behind closed doors.

Gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools

Gyms/leisure centres/swimming pools closed.

Museums, galleries and other cultural attractions

All venues closed.

This includes National Cultural Institutions, art galleries, museums, concert halls, theatres and tourist attractions.

Online services available.

Bars, cafes and restaurants (including hotel bars and restaurants)

Take-away food or delivery only.

Staff canteens and hotels where people are residing on the premises are exempted.

Wet pubs

Take-away or delivery only.

Wet pubs in Dublin remain closed.

Nightclubs, discos and casinos

These remain closed.

Hotels, guesthouses and B&B’s

Open but only for those with essential non-social and non-tourist purposes.

Retail and services (for example: hairdressers, beauticians, barbers)

Item was unpublished or removed and essential services only.

All other retail and personal services closed.

Face coverings must be worn.

Work

Work from home unless essential for work, which is an essential health, social care, or other essential service and cannot be done from home.

There is a broad range of sectoral guidance available to our stakeholders set out below.

Sport

Sport Ireland has prepared a broad range of guidance to support NGBs and sporting organisations. These include:

• Older People, Children/Youth
• People with Disabilities
• Outdoors
• Competition
• Training

This guidance is available here.

Further guidance is currently being developed by the Expert Advisory Group on Sport.

Tourism

Fáilte Ireland has prepared a range of sector specific guidance for hotels, B&B's, restaurants and bars.

This guidance is available here.

Arts and culture

Theatre Forum has developed guidance for Indoor Theatres and Arts Centres on managing audience assembly.

This guidance is available here.

The Arts Council and Fáilte Ireland are in partnership to develop additional guidance for the arts and culture sector.

Children and youth

The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has developed guidance for youth work services.

This guidance is available here.

It should be noted that youth work is defined as a planned programme of education designed for the purpose of aiding and enhancing the personal and social development of young persons through their voluntary participation, is complementary to their formal, academic or vocational education and training and is provided primarily by voluntary youth work organisations. While this definition may include arts, culture and sport activities, providers should ensure when applying the guidelines that they meet the conditions of the definition.

Some of the key measures introduced to date to help support the tourism, arts, culture and sports sectors include:

Tourism

• the “Stay and Spend” tax credit initiative
• a €26m Adaptation Grant for the tourism sector
• a €10m grant for coach tourism

Arts and culture

• an additional €25m for the Arts Council
• a €5m Live Events Pilot Grant Scheme
• €5m to support the National Cultural Institutions and nationwide arts infrastructure
• bursaries for Gaeltacht artists to a total value of €250,000

Gaeltacht

• a €5m Company Stabilisation Support for Gaeltacht Companies: Sustaining Enterprise Equity Scheme. This scheme is run by Údarás na Gaeltacht in partnership with Enterprise Ireland to support Údarás client companies deal with the liquidity challenges posed by COVID-19
• a support package totalling over €4m for the Irish summer colleges sector
• an additional allocation of €8m for Údarás na Gaeltachta under the July Stimulus package

Sport

• €40m for the three main field sport bodies: GAA, IRFU and FAI
• a Resilience Fund of up to €10m to support the National Governing Bodies of Sport
• a Sports Restart and Renewal Fund of up to €5m
• €15m resilience fund for sport governing bodies and clubs

Broadcasting

• waiver of broadcasting levy for independent radio sector for first half 2020, worth €1m to sector
• COVID-19-related round of Sound and Vision Scheme for commercial radio sector
• €750,000 Sound and Vision round for community radio
• additional €2m in July Stimulus for Sound and Vision

Plus - universal supports

The universal income supports of PUP and the wage subsidy scheme have been key to supporting to all sectors thorough this crisis; the extension of both of these schemes has provided some much needed certainty.

Budget 2021

As part of a record budget allocation of over €1 billion, the Minister has announced the following measures:

• new €55m support fund for strategic tourism businesses
• VAT on the sector reduced to 9%, will improve competitiveness and viability of businesses
• hospitality; accommodation and arts businesses impacted by pandemic can get rebates of up to €5,000 a week under new COVID-19 Restrictions Support Scheme (CRSS)
• new €50m support for live entertainment - a range of supports for live entertainment events to take place in 2021 in venues across the country, other measures to support music, and a new grant scheme for equipment
• €130m for the Arts Council – a record level
• over €78m funding allocation for Gaeltacht and Irish language sector – up €14.8m on initial 2020 allocation
• funding for TG4 up to €40.733m
• Sport Ireland allocated €104.5m – up €36m

Income supports

As part of the announcement of Level 5 restrictions, the government has announced the following changes to the PUP and EWSS. The new payment structure for the PUP is as follows, with the rate of €350 restored to those who were earning in excess of €400 per week:

This change to payment rates will apply for payments issued from Tuesday 27 October (PUP is paid weekly on a Tuesday) in respect of all existing and new applicants.

The EWSS is also being amended to align with the amendment to PUP. This means there will be 5 payment rates/bands as follows:

• 0 - €151 = €0
• >€151 < €203 = €203
• >€203 < €300 = €250
• >€300 < €400 = €300
• >€400< €1,462 = €350

The main aim of this scheme is to ensure where possible employees retain their link with their employer rather than become unemployed. This revised scheme will run to end January 2021.

Item was unpublished or removed

You can see the list of essential services here.