Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I and the rest of the Government accept responsibility for the decisions we make. Every Government must accept responsibility for the decisions it makes. Was this predicted? Absolutely not. The worst-case scenario we saw was a R value of 1.8. Last week, the R rate was calculated at between 2.4 and 3. The Deputy is entirely wrong, however. When the Government decided to move from level 5 to level 3 on 1 December, it was in line with NPHET's advice. NPHET said to go to level 3 and keep hospitality closed but open up households. The Government said we are going to move to level 3 and do that the other way around. Accordingly, we had a 3A and a 3B level. Nobody knew about the variant. We found out about the variant on the Friday before Christmas.

That was when the UK Government said it had a very serious problem. We worked through that weekend and on the Monday, before NPHET met but in consultation with the Chief Medical Officer, CMO, the Cabinet Covid sub-committee met and agreed to move the country to level 5. These are the facts. I know it does not suit the Deputy's political narrative but-----

See this speech in context