Face coverings to be mandatory in shops

The shopping in herds thing is becoming common-place again. How many young wans does it take to shop for a multi-pack of Taytos, sans masks, ignoring handwashing on leaving the shop and social distancing? The minimum seems to be four.
I agree with that but until shops require their own floor staff to wear masks they will find it difficult to enforce the rules on their customers.
 
Apart from PPE, is there any chance Blessed Martin could appoint a Minister for Sensible Heads, as they seem to be in short supply. Dunnes stores Rathdowney Co Laois this afternoon, no staff member wearing masks, not one single uniformed person whether behind plastic shields or in free circulation re-stocking shelves or standing around in groups of three or four chatting and blocking aisles wore masks; most of the customers not bothered with either masks or hand-sanitisation. I asked a staff member standing inside the exit/entrance what the story was and he launched into a story about his asthma and masks and awaiting legal guidance from those above. God help us.

In contrast, in SuperValu a few hundred metres away, all staff members and most customers wore masks and gloves and the store has been redesigned with the old entrance now one-way and a new one-way exit. Well done SuperValu.

I know I'm a late convert, but anything we can do to try to avoid another pandemic surge is worth doing, unless you work or shop in Dunnes.
We mainly use Dunnes Stores in Cork's Douglas Court for food etc. As far as I am concerned since the start of the pandemic in Ireland Dunnes Stores are light years ahead of most other supermarkets/textile-outlets. There is plenty of space within the aisles. The staff are the friendliest and most helpful I've come across. They all wear face masks. Pity I can't say the same about some of the customers.
 
As far as I am concerned since the start of the pandemic in Ireland Dunnes Stores are light years ahead of most other supermarkets/textile-outlets.

From reports here it sounds like there is a broad variation in how different stores are being managed.
 
I was in Dunnes stores off O Connell St last week and all staff and 90 per cent of customers were wearing masks. And most other stores all staff and about 80 per cent which is a big improvement on when I was there about three weeks ago.
 
Are they mandatory in shops yet? I thought that this was going to become law? What's the delay?

I was in Blackrock yesterday, visited the Frascati Shopping Centre. Most people were wearing masks but you had the 10% that just wouldn't wear them. They need to be stopped at the door by someone and told that they have to wear a mask or no entry.
 
Are they mandatory in shops yet? I thought that this was going to become law? What's the delay?

Legislation only passes quickly when it's dealing with non-contentious issues like pay rises for politicians. Everything else, they all want their say through series of debates and reviews.
 
Legislation only passes quickly when it's dealing with non-contentious issues like pay rises for politicians. Everything else, they all want their say through series of debates and reviews.

Isn't the Dail about to go on holidays for 6 weeks? So if it's not passed soon seems DOA.
 
Are they mandatory in shops yet? I thought that this was going to become law? What's the delay?

I was in Blackrock yesterday, visited the Frascati Shopping Centre. Most people were wearing masks but you had the 10% that just wouldn't wear them. They need to be stopped at the door by someone and told that they have to wear a mask or no entry.
It's the same in Blanchardstown center. I think there should be a sign on the shop window,no face covering no service. The same for banks, EBS etc.
 
I agree with that but until shops require their own floor staff to wear masks they will find it difficult to enforce the rules on their customers.
The shopkeepers haven't the slightest intention of enforcing any rules that might endanger sales. Today in a local CENTRA shop I asked a bunch of young lads in hurling gear why they weren't

wearing masks
observing the 2 mtr social distancing guidance
cleaning their hands entering or leaving the shop.

I got the usual guff in response from the young gurriers, but amazingly, the shop assistant took it upon herself to interject and I quote, "the guidelines are mandatory but not a legal requirement yet". With that kind of nonsense coming from a responsible adult, what hope the young dudes will honour the guidelines?

CENTRA, Main st, Urlingford, Co Kilkenny now off the shopping list and as the young lads self-identified as being from Kilkenny CBS, I'll check with the principal's office as soon as that's possible.
 
Face coverings to be mandatory in retail settings from Monday, 10th August https://www.rte.ie/news/2020/0804/1157298-live-tracker-gov-phase-four/

Posted on RTE website at 22:00 hrs 4th August, no further elaboration as of 01:12 Weds 5th August.

How will this be enforced or perhaps my question should be will this be enforced? Shoppers are ignoring the guidelines the government published, any bets they'll ignore what is now mandatory?
 
I thought that face masks were mandatory from 2 or 3 weeks ago.

Mandatory but not compulsory yet ... waiting to see if by 10th august they will be legislation or workplace safety rules to back this up or does it remain a 'guideline'.
 
Visited our local Tesco (Navan) this morning. I encountered approx. 15 staff in the aisles of which only 1 was wearing face covering - a face shield. In the checkout area the lady supervising the self service checkouts plus two other staff in the area were also wearing face shields while the lady at my checkout was wearing a face mask even though she was also protected by a perspex screen. All bar 3 of the customers I saw (I estimate at least 40) were wearing masks. Why do these floor staff feel they don’t need to wear face coverings either to protect themselves or the customers ?. I know I will be accused of being ageist here but I would say all of them were under 30. Btw in our local SuperValu (Johnstown) all staff (except perspex protected checkout staff) seem to be wearing face masks. The sooner it is made mandatory the better.
 
All very well talking about masks in shops but we are seeing large clusters in environments like food processing factories and construction. Why aren't we seeing moves to make face coverings compulsory there? Or are they compulsory and still not preventing the spread. We seem to be spending so much energy debating areas like travel and masks in shops that we seem to lose sight of where the actual transmissions are. Direct Provision facilities and Food Processing all saw outbreaks in other countries and they are linked so it shouldn't have come as a shock. Now we have them expressing concern at the outbreak and teams are being put in place. Same with the Roma and Traveller communities. These were high risk from day one. We recently had a visit from a convoy of Travellers with English reg vehicles into our small town. The matter was raised with local politicians and they all ran a mile from the issue. Easier to condemn a flight from the US I suppose......
 
All very well talking about masks in shops but we are seeing large clusters in environments like food processing factories and construction. Why aren't we seeing moves to make face coverings compulsory there? Or are they compulsory and still not preventing the spread. We seem to be spending so much energy debating areas like travel and masks in shops that we seem to lose sight of where the actual transmissions are.

The Cabinet briefing discussed many things e.g. pubs, green list.
NPHET mentioned in their briefing concern about transmission between colleagues sharing lifts to work.
So there's nothing to suggest masks are 'drowning' out any other issue. I see zero evidence for that idea.
It gets a lot of discussion on social media forums because it affects ordinary citizens rather than just people in specific workplace settings.

 
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The shopkeepers haven't the slightest intention of enforcing any rules that might endanger sales. Today in a local CENTRA shop I asked a bunch of young lads in hurling gear why they weren't

wearing masks
observing the 2 mtr social distancing guidance
cleaning their hands entering or leaving the shop.

I got the usual guff in response from the young gurriers, but amazingly, the shop assistant took it upon herself to interject and I quote, "the guidelines are mandatory but not a legal requirement yet". With that kind of nonsense coming from a responsible adult, what hope the young dudes will honour the guidelines?

CENTRA, Main st, Urlingford, Co Kilkenny now off the shopping list and as the young lads self-identified as being from Kilkenny CBS, I'll check with the principal's office as soon as that's possible.

Was the Centra worker not correct, though?
 
The shopkeepers haven't the slightest intention of enforcing any rules that might endanger sales. Today in a local CENTRA shop I asked a bunch of young lads in hurling gear why they weren't

wearing masks
observing the 2 mtr social distancing guidance
cleaning their hands entering or leaving the shop.

I got the usual guff in response from the young gurriers, but amazingly, the shop assistant took it upon herself to interject and I quote, "the guidelines are mandatory but not a legal requirement yet". With that kind of nonsense coming from a responsible adult, what hope the young dudes will honour the guidelines?

CENTRA, Main st, Urlingford, Co Kilkenny now off the shopping list and as the young lads self-identified as being from Kilkenny CBS, I'll check with the principal's office as soon as that's possible.
It’s a wonder that you didn’t perform a citizens arrest.
 
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