Government makes decisions in interests of all – and Nphet has no right to usurp that role
THE tensions between the Government and Nphet have been mischaracterised as a simple difference of opinion on the appropriate response to the rise in Covid cases. But that was not the issue. The issue was, at its core, a dispute about who is in charge of public policy.
The answer is plain and simple: the Government. No advisory group should attempt to pre-empt, less still usurp that role. Public policy is always broader, both in terms of implementation and impact, than simply dealing with what may appear as a very specific single issue. It falls to the Government to balance competing considerations and discern what best serves the national interest.
What happened was that Nphet got too big for its boots. Last Sunday evening’s drama was an indefensible overreach of its brief as an advisory body. Yet such things don’t happen without context.
Leo Varadkar told Claire Byrne on Monday the role of Nphet was “to advise the Government, not the country”. He was right in theory, but the fact is the Government gave Nphet a daily platform to speak directly to the public from the beginning of the pandemic. How and why did this come about? Was it a case of the Government handing the dispensing of unpalatable medicine to the medics who were prescribing it?
The format of these announcements has become more and more frustrating. It has reduced journalists to penchewing pupils struggling to keep up as the panel of experts talk in jargon, pointing to complex graphs and tables that often seem to further confuse.
The Taoiseach, Tánaiste or Health Minister should have been present, as their counterparts are in the UK. It’s easier to challenge them – and it’s certainly easier to understand them.
Margaret Hickey
Blarney, Co Cork