David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will make one small point in addition. I make it directly to the Minister because it is the case that we were told that it was an official in the Department who was the problem or the difficulty, or at least it was alleged that that was the difficulty in getting NPHET before the committee. There is a wider point, however, and it goes back to the fact that in the very early stages of this pandemic there were high-level briefings for party leaders and health spokespersons.

That is no longer happening. No briefings are taking place on big decisions being made. There are some for local Deputies in some circumstances but, by and large, we are not getting the level of quality information that we in opposition deserve. This is part of it again. It took us a long time to get representatives of NPHET to come in. With respect to Deputy O'Dowd, I accept it is good they are appearing today. We have a two-hour session where members who have five minutes need to make a choice as to whether to put a question to the Minister for Health or to the representatives of NPHET, which is not fair. It is not right to put the public health officials against the Minister in the same session.