The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is working closely with the Department of Health and with other Departments, as part of a whole of Government response to Covid-19. This means that the Department is taking all the precautions necessary to protect its staff and its clients, consistent with HSE advice, but is remaining open for business, prioritising the delivery of essential services to farmers, fishermen and the food and forestry sectors.
The Department has taken the necessary steps to ensure:
- that producers and processors can continue to operate effectively and keep supply lines open that the Department can operate as effectively as possible during the current pandemic.
- Keeping food and other processing facilities operational, ensuring that payments and commercial activities that are necessary to protect farm incomes can continue and that fishermen can continue to land fish and place them on the market are among the critical priorities for the Department. In many instances these activities depend on the Department’s ability to carry out its regulatory and inspection functions.
In this regard, the Department is sensitive to the understandable concerns that all citizens will have at this time. It is ensuring that its staff operate in accordance with protocols that follow HSE advice. This advice will evolve, and the Department will ensure that it continues to observe best practice in all its activities.
The Department’s public offices are closed to the public for the present, however, a new telephone helpline to assist farmers with their queries in relation to current COVID-19 restrictions will be in place from 1 April and the dedicated phone number is 076-1064468. The phone lines will be open from 9.30am to 12.30m and from 2pm to 5pm. A range of online facilities are also available
As always, farmers should remember to observe basic biosecurity protocols and safety rules when working on the farm.
