The Managing Director of Retail Excellence has welcomed the changes to close contact rules.
The Cabinet today approved changes to the rules around close contacts and these will take effect from midnight tomorrow night.
Duncan Graham said it has been a very difficult start to 2022.
Mr Graham said that 50% of businesses questioned for a recent survey said around 20% of their staff were out as a result of Covid related issues.
This could translate into around 50,000 people, he said.
Mr Graham added that a third of businesses had been forced to close while two thirds reported impacts on supply chains.
He said that the detail of changes still needs to be worked out and said there were a lot of younger people working in retail who would not have received their booster shots yet.
"I think the really important thing now is to increase the booster programme, to get that ramped up and to get the remaining 2 million people boosted as quickly as possible," he stated.
Duncan Graham said it is important that employers and employees have open conversations and those employees that are concerned about coming to work need to be able to voice those concerns.
He said it would be great to see free antigen testing made available by the HSE and many retailers have already provided antigen tests to staff.
Speaking on his way into Government Buildings this morning, the Taoiseach said the proposals to relax self-isolation rules for people who are close contacts of people with Covid are coming about because of the success of the vaccination programme.
