President Higgins pays tribute to essential workers in Late Late Show interview
President Michael D Higgins has paid tribute to the contribution of frontline and essential workers during the coronavirus outbreak.
Speaking on RTÉ's Late Late Show, President Higgins said consideration needed to be given to how they are paid, their job security and working conditions.
"To think that of all those infected, 34% are people who are delivering themselves into the shadow of Covid every day and I thought not only of them but they have to leave home and their families behind," he said.
"And the others who stand behind, the people who do the cleaning, the postmen who go from house-to-house. These are the essential workers, society couldn't function without them.
"We pay tribute to them and thank them but we wouldn't just want to leave it that."
He added: "We have to ask ourselves a question - have we underrated the contribution of this most important part of our lives?
"We need to follow through and look at how they are remunerated, their security and the conditions they are asked to work in.
"So that is why it is appropriate that we are discussing this in front of the Starry Plough, a monument that celebrates workers."
During the interview at Áras an Uachtaráin, President Higgins also revealed that both he and his wife Sabina became grandparents for the first time earlier in 2020.
Their grandson was born before the Covid-19 restrictions were implemented and he said they are looking forward to being reunited when they can.
President Higgins also said that we have an opportunity to provide a "better fit" between economy, environment and society as the world learns to live with Covid.
"I see coming out of this not just an opportunity of responding or exiting from Covid but actually a whole new shape," he said.
"Build the compassion and the kindness into our relationships.
He added: "Across the board there seems to be a great promising moment in which we might say we are going to do health differently, we are going to do housing differently, we're going to do the issue of childcare differently".
The President said we owe it to workers in precarious employment to remove that element, while also giving people a living income to enable them "to participate in society".
"We owe it to the workers to go back not just to survive but to participate in society," the President added.
