Irish Examiner view: We have the right to an open debate on how we handled pandemic

Questions need to be answered on what we did and what we could have done better in response to the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic.

People queue at the Covid-19 walk-in booster vaccination centre at the City Hall, Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

What form should any inquiry into our nation’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic take?

This is a subject about which we have been relatively restrained since the autumn, in general acceptance of the fact that the country wished to concentrate on containing and beating back the virus, before focussing on what we might have done better and, most importantly, what we must do to ensure that we are not laid low and debilitated next time.

Back in September, Taoiseach Micheál Martin was at pains to put interrogation on the long finger when he talked vaguely at NBC studios in New York about a date “towards the earlier part of next year”.

Methodologies, structures, and evaluations would have to be worked on, he said. He would like to get to the “back end” of the pandemic first. We face winter challenges, there could be other viruses and other issues.

Time to debate

Now, with restrictions lifted, it is time to return to the debate. Weekend leaks suggest that the favoured route is to appoint an “expert group” to report on lessons for future crisis management and not to establish a commission of inquiry or Oireachtas committee. One such example under Hugh Brady, the president of Imperial College London, is said to be in place to examine public health infrastructure and any deficiencies. We must wait to see if this suggestion of the gathering of a clan of specialists is tabled, or whether it is simply being run up the flagpole to see who is going to salute it. But the idea that this might be a satisfactory way to judge our overall response to coronavirus simply won’t wash.

There are many questions to be asked, and answered, and the people have a rightful expectation that this will be done fully and openly and with participation from a broad range of contributors. In September, we suggested that a useful beginning for the Government would be to publish its roadmap for the matters that it thinks worthy of investigation and receive public feedback. It hasn’t done so and that is a great pity.

Politicians and administrators might wish for the removal of negative experiences from our memories, so that we can move forward with a feeling of peace, happiness, and satisfaction for all we have achieved. But this doesn’t happen outside the realms of Hollywood fantasies, which claim that spotless minds can be maintained for mutual benefit if we forget the bad times.