Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 23 September 2020

Special Committee on Covid-19 Response

Covid-19: Strategic Options for Government Plan to Eliminate Community Transmission

Dr. Samuel McConkey:

I very much welcome, not just the idea of a strategy, but the idea of a three, five and seven-year plan because this is not a problem that go away in a month. As Professor Giesecke introduced earlier, this is a medium and long-term problem that requires community engagement, buy-in and support from all of the people in Ireland for a strategy to work over three, five or seven years. This is not a short-term little problem that will just go away in three months. We are experiencing the biggest pandemic in 100 years so we really need a strategic approach that has with a long vision and not adopt the reactive approach of this happened yesterday and, therefore, we will do that tomorrow.