Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We also asked about a debate on the new regulations. They are linked to the testing and tracing regime because if that was what it should be, we might not be in the situation of having to impose harsh new restrictions. The need for debate on this is doubly the case because the Business Committee also signed off on the schedule for the Covid committee. The CMO, NPHET, the HSE and the Minister for Health were supposed to come before the Covid committee, all to deal with precisely these matters. Now none of them is to come, we discover from the Chair. The Minister, Deputy Donnelly, has said he will not come because apparently the new restrictions are not his responsibility, incredibly, but rather a whole-of-government issue and, therefore, he does not need to answer questions.

The HSE is not coming in for reasons to do with the winter plan not being ready, although there are many other things we need to talk to it about, and the acting Chief Medical Officer and representatives of NPHET are not coming in. These are things that were agreed.

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