Mick Clifford: We moved on from Covid — but did we learn anything?

Experts warn key lessons risk being lost as Ireland opts for limited review instead of full Covid inquiry

The basis for an initial lockdown was sound. But did it go on too long and were its strictures too harsh and unyielding?

Covid was back in the news this week, but for some people it ever went away. There are those who suffer under the pain of the long version of the virus, but beyond that there are the fallouts rarely acknowledged. It’s as if as a society there has been a reversion to the old Irish response to anything awkward or unpleasant. Sure it’s all over, best to say nothing and take plenty of no notice of what went on.

This week there was a public session of the “review” of the pandemic set up by the government in 2024. A review, as opposed to the kind of statutory inquiry established in many other democracies, is the Irish political version of taking plenty of no notice. It is quite obvious that the government views a proper inquiry as a potential stick with which it might be beaten.