ANGRY , IGNORED AND EXHAUSTED
■ Demoralised NPHET feel undermined by politics of Covid battle
Glynn gives separate updates to ‘royal courts’ of Martin and Varadkar Growing minority question if ‘herd immunity’ is answer
PUBLIC health chiefs are exhausted and increasingly feeling undermined by politicians, sources have told the Irish Mail on Sunday.
National Public Health Emergency Team insiders have told of growing demoralisation due to a combination of the resurgence of the virus and a seeming shift in how the Government is interacting with the powerful committee that has led the State’s pandemic response.
The MoS has also been told that the duelling courts of the Taoiseach and Tánaiste within the Government mean the rival partners are regularly briefed separately.
And some experts in NPHET and in the Department of Health say that the entire State Covid lockdown policy may have to
be turned around and a ‘herd immunity’ strategy of allowing people to contract the disease considered.
It comes as the HSE was forced to distance itself yesterday from comments made by Dr Martin Feeley, clinical director of the Dublin Midlands Hospital Group.
He said people at low risk from the virus should be exposed to it so they can develop herd immunity and reduce the risk to vulnerable groups. He told The Irish Times that the data showed the disease was much less severe than the average annual flu.
In a statement yesterday, Dr Colm Henry, chief clinical officer for the HSE, distanced the organisation from the comments.
But NPHET insiders have become so cynical after nearly nine months of close dealings with politicians that they believe, in the words of one, ‘there is just no way politicians, or the political system in this country is going to admit that six months of lockdown was the wrong route’.
There is anger in the civil service that the Government has broken with precedent in recent days and ignored advice.
A senior source in the civil service said: ‘NPHET advice that the guidelines where six people from three households were permitted in a house or garden should be changed to two households, just in Dublin, was point-blank ignored by the Government.’
There is mystification about why Micheál Martin’s Government would choose to leave enacting this advice until this week – although there is a fear that the Fianna Fáil leader is bowing to internal pressure to take power away from NPHET.
The Irish Mail on Sunday has learned that the Government is planning, as part of the national ‘living with Covid plan’, to establish a strong civil service committee as a buffer between NPHET and the Cabinet.
Many believe that the Secretary General of the Government, Martin Fraser, will be put in charge of this committee. Sources in NPHET fear this will lead to further undermining of their position and further confusion.
There remains a growing group in NPHET that believes a new policy of allowing the virus to spread may have to be considered early in the new year.
There are powerful voices within NPHET, the Department of Health, and Government that believe the whole policy of social distancing, limiting human interaction and inhibiting the hospitality industry and sport may ultimately have to be reviewed.
The MoS spoke to members of NPHET, the crack committee of doctors and health administration experts, that has navigated Ireland’s course through the treacherous waters of Covid-19 since January of this year.
Some members even began analysing and working to combat the killer virus in late 2019 as it emerged in China.
‘It’s been a long time on the front, usually troops are rotated out of the firing line but we have been there fighting this, working long hours, under intense scrutiny for many months now,’ said a member of NPHET.
‘Some people have been at this since last year. They are exhausted, we are all exhausted.’
But the tiredness can be managed. What is demoralising for members of this committee and others across the health service are the demands of politicians and the public.
‘At first I thought we were overreacting and then I thought we were going to be in real trouble, and now I think we are going pretty well. But the interfering of politicians has just been so demoralising,’ said a member of NPHET.
There is a feeling across the civil service that the administration of the former taoiseach and current Tánaiste Leo Varadkar moved too quickly to move the country out of lockdown.
‘It was done for political reasons – many felt, it was too soon,’ said one civil servant who has been working to combat Covid.
‘There was a feeling in the civil service that as the Fine Gael-led caretaker government prepared to hand power over to the Micheal Martin-led administration that things were speeded up in an unseemly fashion. It was too quick and we are paying the price now.’
The unprecedented nature of this new government means that there are two competing ‘royal courts’ in Government Buildings.
A Minister acknowledged this: ‘You have the current Taoiseach Micheál Martin working alongside his predecessor and the man guaranteed to be his successor, Leo Varadkar. Many in the civil service are confused about who they should look to as the boss – the fella in charge now or the fella who was until recently in charge and who is going to be in charge in two years’ time.’ There is a belief in the Department of Health that key officials have had their already long, intense hours made even tougher by the competing ‘royal courts’ scenario.
‘Many of us believe that Dr Ronan Glynn and others are being worn down by all this.
He has to go and brief the Taoiseach for hours and then give the same briefing to the Tánaiste,’ said a member of NPHET.
‘And this kind of stuff goes on all over the place, backchannel briefings, power struggles, competing interests,’ added the NPHET source, ‘and all this while we’re trying to battle a global pandemic.
‘The whole thing has become so politicised.’
Asked to comment, a Government spokeswoman told the MoS yesterday: ‘Sometimes they are briefed together. Sometimes separately.
‘It depends on diaries and availability.’
There is particular anger among sources on NPHET about the reopening of pubs.
‘We’re real people, we live in communities, most ordinary people we interact with understand that we have to band together on this.
‘We didn’t feel a strong public pressure on the reopening of pubs.
‘If the reasons we were keeping the pubs that only serve alcohol closed were explained properly to the politicians and their spin doctors, it wouldn’t have become such an issue.
‘But the licensing lobby is strong in Ireland.
‘Have a look at the number of politicians down the years who have been publicans themselves. And many publicans are wealthy, they contribute to campaigns. The pubs lobby is strong, vocal and organised – the politicians bowed to them. And they have opened the pubs too soon.’
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly is following Simon Harris’s successful stint managing the crisis at the Department of Health.
A member of NPHET said: ‘Everyone at the Department of Health liked Simon Harris, he was humble and hardworking. The same can’t be said of Stephen Donnelly, unfortunately.
‘I’m sure he’s the kind of fella who’s good craic in the rugby clubhouse, telling you tales of derring-do, but he is grating up against people in the Department,’ said a civil servant at the Department of Health.
Mr Donnelly has had some poor media outings which have annoyed people at the Department.
‘There are people who have been working hard at this for many, many months, many aren’t very well paid.
‘And then you have this chap going on TV making quips about trampolines and things. That annoyed us.’
‘We’ve been under intense scrutiny for months now’
‘The politicians bowed to the pubs lobby’