From Tomorrow May 22nd Courts will conduct sittings for longer than two hours daily:
The Courts Service CEO Angela Denning has written to staff and to representatives of court users with the following message:
You will be aware of the recent evidence given to the COVID-19 Oireachtas Committee and a discussion about its impact on the holding of court sittings. The health and well-being of employees, judges and court users continues to be of paramount importance to the Courts Service. I am writing to you to relay advice received from Professor Martin Cormican at the Health Protection Surveillance Centre which clarified the issues raised in the Oireachtas.
In summary, Prof. Cormican has advised that;
- HSE Public Health advice remains unchanged and in fact there is no rule that people should spend less than 2 hours in the same room as others - even in a medical setting where people are known to have COVID- 19.
- from an infection control perspective, there is no need to limit court sessions to 2 hours.
- the consequence of sessions lasting longer than 2 hours would be that if someone tested positive, all persons in the courtroom with them for the full 2 hours would be considered a potential contact. An assessment of the courtroom would then be carried out by public health doctors looking at ceiling height, ventilation, dimensions etc. to identify actual contacts.
He concluded that:
- He has not been able to identify any public health or infection prevention and control recommendation to prospectively limit people being in the same room at work to a period of less than 2 hours in a 24-hour period
- Such practice is likely to make essentially no material difference to the current risk of acquiring COVID-19 provided good workplace controls on presenting to work when ill and good hygiene are in place. He does not recommend this measure on infection prevention and control grounds.
- Limiting the period in a meeting /shared space to less than 2 hours in a 24-hour period can serve as an administrative/technical solution to avoid the inconvenience of being retrospectively designated as a COVID-19 Contact under the Contact Tracing guidelines. He further suggested that some groups or organisations may wish to implement this limit for this purpose but does not see that as primarily an infection prevention and control issue and also, this is not likely to arise with any frequency at the moment given the low incidence of diagnosed infection.
I believe that this advice provides helpful clarification and reassurance as to how we can continue to work safely. If the public health guidance changes, we will obviously comply with and implement those changes.
Angela Denning
CEO
Following this advice:
- the Courts Service is confident it will be able to identify parties who have been in court for more than 2 hours
- A record of all those who are in courtrooms for more than 2 hours is to be maintained - in case contact tracing is required. This record will only be used for contract tracing purposes and will not be retained longer than necessary.
- Numbers who might safely be accommodated in each courtroom have been assessed and are being managed to organise safe hearings.
- Social distancing and additional hygiene measures are in place in courtrooms