Irish Examiner view: We need proactive Government support to Covid-19 crisis

Government have not harnessed the resource of our medical scientists in universities and technological institutes in their response to the coronavirus pandemic 

Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly TD, was tested for Covid-19. File picture:Gareth Chaney/Collins

The Monty Python-esque nature of the launch on Tuesday of the Government’s medium term plan for living with Covid-19 has masked — if that is the right word — a glaring omission in the road map which is to cover the next nine months. Barely a page of this lengthy document concerns itself with testing yet, as Health Minister Stephen Donnelly’s experience shows, rapid testing is essential for a return to normality.

For four hours on Tuesday we had an executive in isolation and a parliament suspended, amid an already decimated judicial system. In effect, all three major branches of Government were rendered inoperative — not a good idea in a democracy.