‘Hopefully we can improve on it in July and August’ – Taoiseach says international advice ‘negative’ on large weddings

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the move to allow 50 people at wedding ceromonies was to remain consistent with the number allowed to attend religious services.

Under new Government guidelines set to be implemented on May 10, up to 50 people could attend a wedding service, both civil and religious.

However, only six people can attend an indoor reception and 15 people can attend an outdoor reception. In addition, 50 people will also be permitted to go to a religious service.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland today, Mr Martin addressed this discrepancy, saying that large gatherings at weddings have always been a safety concern.

“It’s very tough - the idea of the service is to be consistent,” he said. “If we have 50 at religious services generally, you then will have an anomaly if you want to allow 50 at the wedding services, be it religious or non-religious. Or indeed at the funerals and that.

“But in the aftermath of that, the international advice has always been negative in terms of weddings in terms of large crowds gathering and that. I think it is very severe and will always be keeping that under review. But we will be moving to 25 in June. And hopefully we can improve upon that in July and August.”

Discussing the topic further, the Taoiseach said he wouldn’t provide exact figures yet as to when bigger weddings with 75 or 100 attendees would be allowed, but it does concern him.

“I’m not going to give numbers today,” he said. “But this is one that worries me. It’s a very tough regime on people getting married, right now to have six at the official event.”

“25 is very tough. And we all face challenges in terms of numbers and, I hate saying the phrase, ‘makes the cut’.

“That is an area that we would like to be more flexible moving forward.”

Mr Martin was also questioned as to why hotels and B&Bs will be allowed to go forward with indoor dining for guests while the rest of the hospitality sector will be restricted to outdoors.

“I think situations like this are never optimal,” he said. “And I think I would just appeal to sectors not to look at other sectors and say: ‘they’re going a bit ahead of us’. Look in the broader trend at what we’re doing.”

“It’s been devastating for hospitality, we know that, it really has. But the public health advice was really strong on this. They said very clearly that a number of inherently high risk activities that are not deemed not possible in that timeframe, that’s the May/June time frame.

Included in that list are activities such as indoor hospitality in restaurants, nightclubs, bars and casinos, as well as indoor team sport training exercises and other mass gatherings indoors.

On a final note, the Taoiseach noted that this accelerated opening is possible because Nphet has been clear that the plan the Government has announced is “low to medium risk”.

“It’s cautious, it’s phased, and if you look at the month of May in particular it’s in line with the type of areas that we flagged at the end of April,” he said.

“But all again with strong sectoral guidance, and all of us depending on our individual behaviours and collective behaviours to make this work. But I think the people so far since Christmas have responded extremely well to the guidance and regulations.

“And that in the main has been the key factor, and we’re ahead really where we thought we’d be in this reopening.

“Basically we will monitor this and we will take steps if steps are necessary. Because the overriding consideration will always be the protection of public health and life. And in that context Ireland has done relatively speaking so far compared to others.”

Irish Independent