List of Essential Service Providers under New Public Health Guidelines
- 1. Agriculture and Fishing
- 2. Manufacturing
- 3. Repair and installation of Machinery and Equipment
- 4. Electricity, Gas and Water
- 5. Construction
- 6. Wholesale and Retail Trade
- 7. Transport Storage and Communication
- 8. Accommodation and Food Services
- 9. Information and Communications
- 10. Financial and legal activities
- 11. Professional, Scientific and Technical activities
- 12. Rental and Leasing Activities
- 13. Administrative and Support Services
- 14. Public Administration and Defence
- 15. Human health and social work activities
- 16. Community/Voluntary Services
The government has decided that everyone should stay at home until 12 April 2020, except for the following situations:
- to travel to and from work, or for purposes of work, only where the work is an essential health, social care or other essential service and cannot be done from home
- to shop for essential food, beverage and household goods or collect a meal
- to attend medical appointments and collect medicines and other health products
- for vital family reasons, such as providing care to children, elderly or vulnerable people
- to take brief individual physical exercise within 2 kilometres of your home, which may include children from your household, as long as you adhere to strict 2 metre physical distancing
- for farming purposes, that is food production or care of animals
As stated in previous guidance, all employees should work remotely from home if at all possible.
The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to employers and employees as to what constitutes an essential service where workers cannot work from home and have no option but to travel to work.
In addition, workers in the categories of essential services set out in the attached appendix are permitted to travel to work, subject to compliance with the guidance below.
If you carry out an activity that is necessary for the continued provision of an essential service by another organisation or you are part of an essential supply chain, you should continue to carry out that activity. To the maximum extent possible, that should be done remotely.
The government also recognises that many companies in Ireland are critical to global supply chains that are responding to the COVID-19 crisis, and many companies also perform critical global roles in other aspects of medicine, as well as security, cyber, cloud and data centre infrastructure. It is intended that these essential global roles are encompassed within this national guidance.
What employers should do
- refer to this guidance to decide whether your organisation is providing an essential service; it is not necessary to seek official authorisation
- if you are providing an essential service, you should identify those employees (including sub-contractors and so on) who are essential to the provision of that service and notify them. This can be done by category of employee or by individual; it could include all employees of the organisation
- if you are providing an essential service, latest public health guidance should be followed at all times
What employees should do
- if your employer notifies you that you are an essential employee, or that you belong to a category of essential employees, you are permitted to travel to and from work
- when travelling to and from work, you should at all times bring with you either a work identification or a letter from your employer indicating that you are an essential employee, as well as one other form of identification
- If you are self-employed, a farmer or agricultural worker, or a member of the clergy, you should carry one form of identification with you at all times
If you are a volunteer who is working as part of the national community response, you are permitted to travel for that purpose, for example, if you are delivering food, supplies or medicine to a person who is cocooned or vulnerable. The Local Government emergency response teams will co-ordinate that response at local level.
Business Continuity and Resilience
All organisations who provide essential services should have business continuity and resilience plans in place. This should take account of the possibility that key workers or key facilities may be impacted by COVID-19.
Non Essential Services
If you are not engaged in the provision of essential services, then you are not permitted to travel to and from work until 12 April 2020.
There will be a grace period until 6pm on Monday 30 March for people who need to make necessary arrangements to wind down their activities in an orderly way. This should however be done in a way that minimises travel and personal interaction as much as possible.
In exceptional circumstances, it is accepted that some extra time will be needed for a wind down of activity, or necessary for a site to continue to operate at a reduced level of activity, for example in complex manufacturing processes or very large construction projects.