Alison O'Connor: What is Leo Varadkar's agenda in such a high-stakes blame game?

This Government has become a byword for the term 'communication breakdown' and this appears to be yet another juicy example, writes Alison O'Connor

Dr Tony Holohan, chief medical officer, was the victim  of a nasty attack by Tánaiste Leo Vardaka.

From hero to zero. That’s the fate that befell our chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan, following his return to work this week — at least in the view of his former political boss.

It’s a few days since Dr Holohan underwent a Varadkar special, being disembowelled on prime time television on Monday night, but the shock seems just as acute. In an interview, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, a medical doctor himself, wielded the scalpel with all the precision of a blunderbuss, leaving many in their sitting rooms around the country gasping at the deliberate brutality.

After a weekend of witnessing US president Donald Trump bringing Covid-19  to an even more disgustingly base level of political theatre, you sensed the American president's malign influence in the Claire Byrne Show studio in RTÉ.

Did Dr Tony Holohan totally misread the room when coming back to take up the reins once more?

He had been absent on personal family leave since July. He returned to work two days early by calling a meeting of Nphet which concluded with a recommendation that the entire country, once again, be effectively placed into lockdown. 

It had looked as if the public health doctor failed to realise the changes that had occurred in his absence; that there now exists a Government with a mandate, unlike at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Not to mention the growing backlash against Covid restrictions and Nphet, not least from the Tánaiste who had misrepresented the work of Nphet as recently as last week in an interview he gave to The Currency website.

A second scenario was that he went in with his eyes wide open knowing exactly where everything stood, so proceeded in a manner he believed was best to deal with rapidly rising Covid levels, plus the increasingly tricky political landscape. 

We know he did a ring around of members of Nphet on Saturday saying he was worried things were getting out of control and some sort of shock therapy to the system was needed. It’s understood he did not get much disagreement from those he spoke to that day.

Following the Nphet briefing on Wednesday night, we know that he did have contact with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly over the weekend —  the minister knew the meeting was taking place on Sunday, he was informed afterwards of the level five recommendation. 

The Taoiseach knew on Saturday that the Nphet meeting was happening, the Tánaiste was kept informed.

This Government has become a byword for the term “communication breakdown” and this appears to be yet another juicy example. 

They knew the CMO was really worried and had called a meeting. It seems no one specifically mentioned level five, but did anyone read between the lines (specifically Mr Donnelly who spoke directly to Dr Holohan)? 

Was there wishful thinking going on? How could there have been so much anger afterwards given the scenario as we now know it? Who leaked it and caused consternation in households all over the country on Sunday night? 

The signs are that the leak came from the political rather than the Nphet side.

These latest revelations make the Tánaiste’s nasty attack on Dr Holohan on Monday night all the more baffling. 

But even if it was a circumstance where it was thought the CMO had dropped, the ball the very public evisceration meted out by the Tánaiste was shocking and unwarranted.

Even without the further information we got on Wednesday night, fair-minded people with a sense of decency knew this went beyond the pale. Not least that this man had previously done the State sterling service, while dealing with incredibly tough personal circumstances. 

If there was a dressing down to be given it should have been done behind closed doors. Look at how other Cabinet members dealt with it at that time. Feelings could have been made clear publicly without being so distasteful — not just against Dr Holohan, but also the rest of Nphet who have worked so hard on all our behalves.

It is an interesting side aspect here that Nphet has nine HSE members. It is not known if all attended the Sunday meeting which took the level five decision. 

But on Monday morning HSE CEO Paul Reid put out a tweet saying there were “obvious concerns” about the Covid trends. “But we also know the impacts of severe & regular restrictions in society on the public health, wellbeing, mental health and the economy. Level 5 recommendation to Government has to be considered in this context too.” That intervention, at that time, could certainly be read as quite a political one.

There's obvious concerns about the trends on #COVID19. But we also know the impacts of severe & regular restrictions in society on the public health, wellbeing, mental health and the economy. Level 5 recommendation to Government has to be considered in this context too. @HSELive

— Paul Reid (@paulreiddublin) October 5, 2020

Following the Tánaiste’s attack, in a vein not dissimilar to how the Johnson administration in the UK has been turning on Whitehall civil servants, we’re left wondering what was the Varadkar end game. 

No doubt he and his colleagues were shocked, but what was the reason for the real unpleasantness? Did he think it would play well with business-owning Fine Gael supporters, increasingly frustrated with the realities of Covid?

What will happen now if the Government is proven badly wrong and virus levels go through the roof, as they look to be doing, along with intensive care admissions and deaths? Dr Holohan’s first media briefing since his return on Wednesday night was compelling viewing, powerful even, and frightening. 

There was the sense that this is where the Covid truth can be found, not on the corridors of Government Buildings. The situation had gotten even worse since Sunday, we were told.

That Varadkar intervention on Monday night had led to an eclipsing of the significance of the Government’s decision not to take on board the Nphet advice to go to level five. 

The politicians would no longer have the fig leaf of saying they are “just following public health advice”.

Maybe that time had come, but it’s a pity more level-headed discussion around it has not been had.

In his speech on Monday night, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said it was important to understand we are in a very different situation to last March. Businesses are beginning to recover and vital public health services are backlogged.

It’s important to understand that the potential implications of such a move to level five, he said, are severe and very different from those we faced earlier this year.

Severe restrictions could involve the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, with these concentrated in families and communities which are already facing difficulties. He said it is not about public health and businesses competing against each other. 

“It’s about protecting lives and livelihoods. We can’t do one without the other.” What wasn’t said, but is implicit, is that more people will die as a result of this course of action.

We’ve moved to a new place now when it comes to tackling Covid, yet it’s the same virus, and it’s behaving just as it did from the beginning. Time will tell the success or otherwise of the decisions taken this week. 

What a pity though that there are significant players, who, deliberate or otherwise, strive to make bad situations worse.