Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The Minister and the Government made a very grave mistake this week by not following the public health advice. The consequence of that mistake is that we will still go to level 5, but we will do so later, for longer and after unnecessary deaths. That is a decision the Government made against the explicit opinion of NPHET that "[a] graduated approach will not have sufficient or timely impact on the trajectory and scale of the disease and will not protect the core priorities". This is clearly a Government decision. The Government cannot hide behind NPHET. It is ignoring the public health advice.

It struck me that in his interviews and press conference the Minister was asked if he and the Government would take responsibility for this. He is the Minister for Health during a pandemic. He has made a decision not to go along with the advice of public health experts. If the level 3 strategy fails, as I believe it unfortunately will, does the Minister accept that is on him and on the Government? I have a second question to offer.

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