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

Last week, I brought the attention of the House to the fact that the acting Chief Medical Officer and NPHET were not coming before the committee on Covid despite having been invited. It is a completely unacceptable situation.

Before the weekend, I discovered from the Covid committee's secretariat that NPHET would not be attending again despite the consternation and debate in the Dáil last week. NPHET was due to attend today but will not be doing so. I wrote to the Covid committee over the weekend to express my dismay about this situation. It beggars belief that the acting Chief Medical Officer and NPHET will not appear before the Covid-19 committee in a time of rising infections and anxiety about the current situation and the Covid strategy. It seems to suggest an unwillingness to have open and transparent discussions about the strategy.

Furthermore, I will object once again to the order of the debates. It is another example of why this manipulation of the order by the Government is a problem. The Forestry (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill will commence this evening, but several of the party and Independent groups will not get to speak in the first round of speeches. That is unacceptable. This is an important Bill about the future of forestry, but once again whole sections of the Dáil will be excluded from the opening round of the debate.

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