A Fianna Fáil TD has questioned the legality of a change to health and safety laws, which removed a requirement on employers to notify the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) about an infectious disease in their workplace.
Under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act of 2005 employers were required to inform the HSA of infectious diseases in the work place as well as other illnesses or personal injury.
But this section of the law was changed by a ministerial regulation signed in 2016 to remove the requirement for infectious diseases to be notified.
The loophole is being discussed at a meeting of the Oireachtas Special Committee on Covid-19 Response where it was described by Patricia King of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions as a "major