Level 3 and Community Centre: "The ball is burst again"

Enda O'Neill.

"The ball is burst again," the manager of Kilcullen Community Centre Enda O'Neill said tonight, following the news that the country is to be moved in entirety to Level 3 in the National Framework for living with Covid-19, writes Brian Byrne.

The decision takes effect from midnight tomorrow, and it is understood that there will be 'improved enforcement' of regulations.

Enda O'Neill said that, following the guidelines for the safety of the community, it means the Centre will now have to be closed again, but the All-Weather Pitch will remain open for non-contact training for pods of up to 15 people. Tomorrow, Tuesday, it will be open as normal. 

Enda, who took over the management of the Centre at the beginning of this year, then had to close it in the March lockdown, said the latest move is bad for everyone concerned. "It's the livelihoods of the people running many activities in the Centre, and it's also impacting on the mental health as well as the physical health of a lot of people. But I'm very much concerned with the safety of our staff and users of the Centre and we have to go along with the guidelines."

A full schedule of events for October in the Centre included Yoga, Drama classes, Pilates, Basketball, a Soccer Academy, Dance classes, and Fitness Classes.

"It means that we have to go back online," Evelyn O'Sullivan of Drama Dynamics told the Diary tonight. "It's disappointing. I'd hoped to get as far as mid-term break." Saying she knew that it was 'going to be bad' in Covid terms over the coming months, Evelyn said at least she'd had three full weeks with her new semester classes.

Evelyn O'Sullivan and students in The Wizard of Oz in 2019.

"The good thing about it is that now it's not new, we have done this before. Most of the kids have done it before. And there have been loads of workshops over the summer, so there are now loads of resources to help us doing stuff online that just didn't exist in March. It's not ideal, but it could be worse." She also said that the three weeks of face-to-face classes means that at least the new students have gotten to know each other and the rest of the group.

The news is also sad for Mandy McLoughlin's Belly Dancing classes, which have been running for years in the Centre. "I'm disappointed. It's not for the money so much as for people's mental health," she says. "For mine, and for the girls who have been coming to me since the classes opened in the Centre. It's a social thing. And social gatherings are so precious now."

Two parish events have also been affected by the changes. The third sessions of First Communions, scheduled originally for next weekend, are now taking place tomorrow, Tuesday morning. And the resumption of the Suas Knitting Group, due for tomorrow morning in the Parish Centre, has been postponed.

The move to Level 3 will also have serious implications for restaurants and for drink-only pubs which only reopened two weeks ago after closures of more than six months. Under the restrictions as outlined to date, service would be limited to outdoors only, with a maximum of 15 customers. No indoor seating would be allowed.

The Diary will be updating the situation in terms of local business impact as details develop.

The restrictions will be reviewed by ministers in three weeks' time. Tonight, the Taoiseach said that there's been an 'exponential increase' of infection across the country. Recent trends are a 'serious cause for concern', Michael Martin said. He said that severe restrictions now could involve loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, and could also have a severe impact on non-covid healthcare.

The Government will step up measures to ensure compliance with guidelines. "There is no doubt some are taking a lax attitude." the Taoiseach said, adding that details of measures to deal with this will be rolled out in the coming days. "It's about protecting lives and livelihoods. If we all act now we can stop the need to go further. I have no doubt we can get through this. What will happen next is in our own hands. Every one of us can have an effect on the lives of others."

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