Michael McDowell has 'no confidence' in Nphet as Dublin lockdown 'flies in the face of science'

Michael McDowell said the decision to lock down has not been scientifically justified.
File picture: Gareth Chaney

The difference in treatment of meat plants and restaurants means the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) does not deserve public respect or confidence, a senator has said.

Former tánaiste and justice minister, Senator Michael McDowell delivered a stinging rebuke of Nphet on foot of its recommendation to send Dublin into a fresh lockdown.

“I have no confidence in Nphet for this very simple reason: the difference in treatment of meat plants and restaurants between it and the HSE is dramatic and inexplicable,” he said.

“I have no confidence in the HSE because for three years, from 2016 to 2019, report after report said to increase intensive care unit provision as it is underprovided for and nothing was done about this,” he said.

He said that during this time practically nothing was done. When this situation arose again in March, the Covid-19 committee heard that sanction has been given for an increase in ICU capacity. That is the politics and the administration of paralysis, Mr McDowell said.

Closing down restaurants in the capital will condemn vast swathes of vulnerable, underpaid people to go home to their bedsits, or wherever they are, and spend weeks alone in those premises without proper wages, he said.

Mr McDowell said the decision to lock down has not been scientifically justified.

“It is wrong. It flies in the face of the strategy announced two weeks ago by Government that it was going to open these places again,” he said. 

It flies in the face of science. It is wrong.

He said: "NPHET does not deserve our respect. The HSE does not deserve our respect. They are implementing policies which are cruel, wasteful, and extremely damaging to our economy and extremely damaging to public health in terms of cancer, psychiatry, psychology, and well-being across the board. It is time we stood up and demanded that these regulations be properly debated in this House,” he said.

Fine Gael Senator Tim Lombard raised the Irish Examiner’s lead story of a Covid-19 cluster of 226 cases in a meat plant in Cork which remained open.

“At the moment we are dealing with a dangerous vacuum, with rumour and counter-rumour, and nobody has a clue what is happening on the ground,” he said.

“Yesterday in the Dáil, a member claimed there was a certain number of cases in Cork and the wider southern half of the country. We need clarity on the entire structure, including how things are happening and how the reporting is happening,” he said.

“This morning, I took the opportunity to call the chairperson of Meat Industry Ireland to have a conversation about getting that information out to the general public,” Mr Lombard said.

If there were a case of Covid-19 in a school, the information would be published and we would be aware of it, he said.

“Very strict restrictions have been introduced for the bar and restaurant sector, where customers' names are taken and businesses must be very transparent as to how they are running their show. In respect of the Meat Industry Ireland issue, we need to find out exactly where the cases are, how many there are and what the issue on the ground is,” he said.