Elaine Loughlin: Stephen Donnelly must deal in certainty not speculation

The Health Minister has thrown out wild promises like they are prizes on the Late Late Toy Show, before backpedaling frantically. It is undermining public confidence, writes Elaine Loughlin.

The Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly. Offering false hope and then quickly rowing back on promises only makes a Covid-weary population despondent and depressed. Picture: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie

Growing up, there was always that one child who tried to slyly move the jumper goalposts during football games in a bid to claim a score.

Stephen Donnelly is that child.

"Broadly, the target was hit," the Minister for Health responded when queried as to whether his commitment to have all residents and staff of care homes vaccinated by last Sunday had been met.

Rewind to the evening of January 8, when the Department of Health issued a statement on behalf of the Minister in which he promised: “We had planned to vaccinate all 75,000 residents and staff with the first dose of the vaccine by the end of January. 

We’re now accelerating this plan to finish earlier, meaning that the first dose will be given to all residents and staff in the next two weeks.

“Speed is of the essence and this is especially true for the most vulnerable people in our society.”

But with an awkward tip of the foot, Mr Donnelly this week attempted to move the jumper.

He claimed he had "broadly" met his targets but couldn't provide an exact figure on the number of people in nursing homes who did not get vaccinated. Many of the residents and staff in question were missed because Covid had crept into these nursing homes before the vaccination teams got a chance to protect this vulnerable group.

At a briefing following the Government decision to keep the country in Level 5 restrictions until March, Mr Donnelly said: "The vast majority in terms of nursing homes, both staff and residents, and then the over-65s residents in long-term mental health and disability (facilities) were got to."

He added that "broadly 143,000" people had been vaccinated by the target date with "approximately 65,000 in long-term residential care and 78,000 frontline healthcare workers".

On Monday, the Irish Examiner asked the HSE for the total number of staff and residents who did not receive a vaccine before Mr Donnelly's Sunday deadline.

While they did not provide an overall tally, the HSE said four care homes were not included in the first series of vaccinations "on public health advice" and 120 homes were "not completely done" due to active outbreaks.

But using Mr Donnelly's own back-of-the-envelope numbers, at least 10,000 care home residents and staff of were still awaiting a vaccine this week.

The problem is our Minister for Health seems to work in approximates and generalities, he has thrown out wild promises like prizes on the Late Late Toy Show, but then quickly backtracks.

This week is just the latest in a string of false promises made, unattainable targets set and blatantly unachievable suggestions floated by the Health Minister.

In August, he announced a grand plan to introduce random testing at airports, five months on and this has yet to materialise.

A few weeks later he said the Government was examining “appropriate powers” to deal with breaking up house parties.

"Over the last while it has become apparent that some people think the rules don’t apply to them," he told a press briefing on August 19.

"The view taken by Cabinet and indeed the view taken by public health doctors is we therefore need enforcement power where people are clearly flaunting the guidelines and regulations in a way that poses a risk to public health."

The Cabinet then swiftly decided against including new enforcement powers into proposed legislation, with Justice Minister Helen McEntee dubbing it an "extreme measure".

Earlier this month, Mr Donnelly again publicly floated one of his ideas. This time he was going to speak directly with AstraZeneca in a bid to take delivery of their so-called game-changer vaccines ahead of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) approval.

"What I would like to see if possible is to get the AstraZeneca vaccine into Ireland and ideally into all the GP surgeries, into all the pharmacies so that the moment the EMA and EU Commission authorise it, I then have to sign a statutory instrument that authorises it for use in Ireland and we get vaccinating straight away," he said on January 17.

It was a good idea, but practically impossible.

We now are in a situation where a significantly reduced delivery of the AstraZeneca vaccine is not expected to arrive here until mid-February.

Mr Donnelly provided yet another chink of hope last week when he addressed the Dáil.

"We're planning our programme based on a supply of vaccine that would mean every citizen could be vaccinated by September," he told TDs on Thursday.

"The timelines are indicative - but they will hopefully provide reassurance and clarity to people."

When this ambitious timeline was queried by Social Democrat co-leader Róisín Shortall, Mr Donnelly confirmed that all residents would be vaccinated and not just citizens adding: "The vaccine is for anybody who is here".

But by the time he had made it out to the RTE studios yesterday morning, Mr Donnelly was yet again dampening down expectations, or was he?

The Minister initially claimed he had never promised a full rollout of the vaccine by September, but then said this was "still the asperation", before moving to rephrase his comments as he wanted to stick in a list of caveats.

The exchange between the Minister and host Claire Byrne left everyone perplexed.

Mr Donnelly said his recent announcement on the rollout of vaccines "wasn't a promise" as it was "heavily caveated" based on the schedule of advanced purchase.

But he added: "I said September, September is absolutely still the aspiration. It's not a promise. We can't promise for all of those reasons because it's a projection based partly on vaccinations that haven't even been applied for authorisation and on delivery schedules that still have to be fully agreed."

After almost a year of see-saw restrictions, reopenings followed by lockdowns, the public want to grasp onto any blade of certainty or positivity.

But offering false hope and then quickly rowing back on promises only makes a Covid-weary population despondent and depressed.

Stephen Donnelly must start dealing in certainty, not speculation.

Moving the goalposts when the public have trudged their way through this pandemic restriction after restriction and have given their all is just not fair play.