The Minister for Health has admitted he does not know what public worship would add to the level of Covid infection. In the EU, only Ireland and Slovenia are currently banning public worship.

In a written answer to a parliamentary question from Carol Nolan TD, he said modelling the specific impact of attendance at religious services and public worship on the R number is not in the scope of the work of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group(IEMAG), a sub-group of NPHET.

He said it would be possible in theory to model the effect of specific restrictions or policy changes, but IEMAG “is of the view that it is not feasible to provide reliable estimates of the impact on R of very specific interventions”.

Deputy Nolan had asked him if there is specific data available on the contribution that attendance at religious services and public worship has made to the R number with respect to Covid-19; and if so, if he would make that data available.