Fórsa has made representations to a wide range of Government departments and organisations about staff being required to attend workplaces unnecessarily since level five Covid restrictions were introduced last month.

They include the Oireachtas, social protection, property registration, legal offices and agriculture, all of whom have been urged to do more to comply with official health guidelines by re-examining the numbers of staff attending workplaces and identifying additional roles that can be performed remotely.

Earlier this week Fórsa gained wide media coverage after accusing many public service employers of flouting official Government restrictions on workplace attendance under level five. The union said the national effort to bring the coronavirus under control could be undermined by widespread management failure to implement health guidance on workplace attendance.

It said guidelines issued to public service managers fall short of official Government advice to employers across the economy, with the result that there has been no significant reduction in the numbers of civil and public service staff being instructed to travel to work since the country entered level five restrictions last month.

The union has urged the secretary general of the Department of Social Protection to move to online and remote delivery of all Intreo services online to reduce contacts in offices and on public transport. Fórsa has also written to management in property registration, where office-based staff are wearing masks all day because of limited social distancing.

Union officials have also called on the Oireachtas to restrict activity to essential parliamentary business while the country remains at level five. They say committee meetings should be conducted remotely for the time being.

Similar arguments are being made in the Department of Agriculture and legal offices, including the probation service where the union has questioned the safety of face-to-face contacts with clients.

The official economy-wide Government advice at level five is that employees should work from home unless they perform “an essential health, social care or other essential service,” which “cannot be done from home.”

But the guidelines issued to public service employers by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER), most recently on 23rd December, are substantially weaker. They say: “Home working will continue as and when deemed appropriate by the employer, having regard to the changes that may be required at each level.”

The head of Fórsa’s civil service division, Derek Mullen, said far too many civil servants were being required to travel to work to perform roles that can and should be done remotely at the height of the pandemic.

“The public health advice is clear: Staff should be working from home unless their attendance in the workplace is absolutely necessary to provide essential services. Yet there are many more civil servants being ordered into the workplace now than last March, when infection rates were lower and the pressure on our health service was considerably less severe.

“Fórsa is speaking out because we believe staff and service-users are being unnecessarily exposed to potentially virus-spreading interactions in workplaces and on public transport, and that this will likely impede the national effort to contain the virus,” he said.

The union has applauded the contribution of hundreds of thousands of workers, across the private, public and voluntary sectors, who continue to be needed in workplaces to perform essential tasks that can’t be done remotely. But it says they are being put at higher risk by the failure to restrict unnecessary workplace attendance.