Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Is the Cabinet insisting on some form of investigation taking place in respect of the leaking of NPHET guidance in recent weeks before it came into the public domain or even, at times, before it came to the Cabinet? It is very frustrating. As a backbench Deputy, I sometimes feel like we are fighting fires with some of that information. It is circulating in the public domain and then, hours later, comes out officially and is clarified and subsequently clarified again.

As we negotiate our way further through Covid and the fourth wave, with the Omicron variant now taking off, I ask that daily Government Information Service, GIS, briefings be provided for all Deputies, particularly those of us who support the Government. I do not think it is fair for us to have to phone the Minister for Health on his mobile phone to get a brief. The GIS should circulate the short scripts daily. There is a short script, but it needs to be disseminated again now that we are in a fourth wave. There was a time when the public did not want to consume Covid statistics every single day but I think the GIS should circulate the short script daily to make that communication through the tentacles of democracy a little bit easier.

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