‘Who’s in charge?’ TDs warn time for Government, not health advisers to decide

The Dáil has been told that it was time the Government was in charge and started making decisions and not public health advisers.

Fianna Fail justice spokesman Jim O’Callaghan said the Cabinet has “casually delegated too much responsibility to public health advisers” and they had to take account of the broad impact the lockdown was having on society.

Independent TD Mattie McGrath said the Cabinet was “overruled again today by Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan” and he asked who’s in charge here”.

He said during a debate on local government that “it is strange that one man can dictate to seven or eight members of the Cabinet and the whole country. It is time this nonsense were stopped and that the people were supported.”

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The two TDs were commenting after Dr Holohan told Ministers that there would be no change to the two-metre social distancing rule.

Mr O’Callaghan said the Government needed to expedite the process of lifting the lockdown. He said it made “absolute sense back in March that we introduced measures for the lockdown”.

But it’s “the job of our public health advisers to provide public health advice but it is not their job to weigh that public health advice along with other factors. That’s the function of Government.”

Mr O’Callaghan was speaking during a debate on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the areas of communications, climate action and environment.

Warning that the lockdown restrictions “need to be lifted sooner rather than later”, he said “the reality is that we’re going to have to continue to live with Covid” and with a certain amount of risk.

“It has never been the case that public health advice was mandatory on people. We also need to recognise that the purpose of the lockdown was to stop our hospital intensive care units being overrun.

“However we cannot now transform the purpose of the lockdown into being that we want to use it for the purpose of stopping people getting sick. That was never the purpose of the lockdown and it would be highly unusual if that was going to be the purpose of its continuance.”

He called on Minister for Communications Richard Bruton to “speak up at Cabinet”.

The Dublin Bay South TD said: “I can understand why politicians are extremely cautious because if they get it wrong they get heavily criticised” but he warned that “we need to be less cautious when it comes to expediting the lifting of the restrictions.

“I think there will be a benefit if they are lifted sooner rather than later and they should not be left in place simply because that is the cautious and safe thing to do.”

Mr O’Callaghan also asked the Government to “get its testing regime in place. That is at the heart of the cure of this problem and for the ability of us to get on with our society again.”