Staff at Ryanair, who were tested for Covid-19, have raised concerns over the way in which an outbreak of the virus at the airline’s headquarters was handled.
Internal communications sourced by the PA news agency informed staff of an outbreak in the North Dublin office on 9 December.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) intervened and initiated mass testing at the office.
The PA news agency has been told that a number of staff in the operations room at Ryanair HQ were particularly concerned about safety procedures in place in the building.
A staff member said: “Even the winter before Covid, one person in the room got sick and we all got sick. The ventilation in the room is shocking.”
They said colleagues had been “freaked out” by the number of positive cases.
Read more: Ryanair forced to remove 'irresponsible' Covid ads
A staff memo sent in mid-December advised staff that “the majority of people in the Ops area” had tested negative.
But sources believe the extent of the number of cases was played down to workers in the building, based on the length of time testing continued.
At least one staff member who was being tested was instructed by a line manager to tell the HSE they had no close contacts in the office in the event of a positive result.
If the HSE persisted with questions, the employee was directed to refer them to a senior member of staff at the airline.
The revelations come just a week after Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary accused public health chiefs in Ireland of causing “mass hysteria”.
He said: “Nphet and the chief medical officer, if he was doing his job properly, should be holding press conferences announcing the number of people who have been vaccinated.
“Not issuing scare stories about numbers of people in hospitals.”
He added: “We need to get away from the mass hysteria created by Nphet.”
A Ryanair spokesperson said the airline does not comment “on rumour or speculation”.
They added: “Ryanair operates an essential service, and has at all times complied with HSE Health and Safety guidelines in the workplace.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel