NPHET is a rival court. Cabinet must now take back control

Irreverent. Irrepressible. In the corridors of power

WHEN Muhammad Ali finally landed a punch, a great shower of sweat flew from George Foreman into the Zaire night. Foreman stumbled and gasped for air, and when yet another of the champion’s blows flew harmlessly past his head, Muhammad Ali understood. And he said to Foreman: ‘Man, this is the wrong place to get tired.’

Arrogance and the complacency that comes with success had conspired by October 1974 to allow Foreman to underestimate ‘the Greatest’ in the match forever to be known as ‘The Rumble in the Jungle’. And now Foreman was going to pay, in the ring. When the opening bell went, Ali, previously known as an elusive ‘dancer’, backed into the ropes, covered his head with his arms and allowed Foreman unleash his notorious power. Legend has it that Ali’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, had even crept into the ring and loosened the ropes before the fight in Kinshasa. Ali waited until the eighth round, by such time Foreman had punched himself to exhaustion. Then Muhammad Ali released a lethal combination on the tired ogre, knocked him out, and the Greatest completed the greatest comeback in fight history.

IT REMAINS to be seen if this Government can pick itself and its reputation for competence from the canvas after this shambolic week. The wretched disintegration of the Government’s Covid communication this week can be explained harshly as a hubristic manifestation of arrogance and complacency. On a human level we could also understand that they have simply become tired. Some ministers have worked across two administrations in a pandemic. After 15 months spent fighting an unprecedented crisis, finally our Government has flagged in the arena. And yes, all of us are experiencing the attritional effects of Covid-19. However, a Government will not receive empathy.

There have been renewals of calls for the decommissioning of NPHET. And, along with the Government, the high-profile body has come under searing scrutiny for a week.

This is an undeniable fact: There are now two public-servant bodies in Ireland communicating their views on pandemic policy-making with the public: NPHET and the Cabinet. And, worse, they are communicating with each other and the public in a dysfunctional manner.

Ministers claim that the first they heard of a ‘vaccine bonus passport’ for the fully vaccinated was at Cabinet on Tuesday morning. Let’s leave the veracity of this claim aside – for it is not wholly true – and pose a starker question. If Minister Micheal McGrath’s reported claim that the hospitality vaccine-bonus recommendation, contained in NPHET’s now infamous letter, was a ‘grenade’ and that they were not given prior warning, why was it in the letter at all? Anyone who works in politics, business, helps pick a football team or interacts with human beings on an organised basis know the mantra ‘the real meeting happens before the meeting’. Indeed, another mantra in all the coalitions I’ve covered has been ‘no surprises’.

Cabinet ministers told me this week that one of two things should have happened on Monday night: NPHET’s letter should either have been sent back for editing or it should not have been published on Tuesday. This second action would have been far from unprecedented, as many of these letters have not been published for days or weeks.

NPHET is a scientific advisory body, with a surprising number of bureaucrats. However, lines in the letter it delivered to the Government wandered dangerously into the arena of policy-making. There has been much debate about the letter, and its boxing the Governnificant ment in on hospitality. It was widely interpreted that the pubs and restaurants should remain shut, after reading the following lines: ‘The other measures which were due to be eased on 5 July… should only be permitted for those who have been fully protected by vaccination or who have had Covid-19 infection in the last nine months.

It says that ‘the planned easing of these measures’ should only proceed if ‘a robust, non-reproducible and enforceable system of verification of vaccination or immunity status can be put in place to support this’.

These lines are a masterpiece of bureaucratic blame-shifting, which the Government decided said: ‘You guys organise a vaccine bonus system... we all know you can’t. And, if you don’t, you take responsibility for closing the pubs.’

In the last administration, these lines would not have been allowed to appear. A minister of the Fine Gael/independents coalition told me: ‘There would have been sigNPHET’s interaction between Simon Harris and Tony Holohan. And it would have been negotiated to remove that. And if it hadn’t [been removed] Leo Varadkar would have sent it back for editing.’

THERE seems to have been a misinterpretation of these pivotal lines too. For what they actually mean, and ministers have confirmed this, is that anything else besides outdoor events that was due to proceed on July 5 should be halted. So, in allowing an increase in the number of guests attending weddings, the Government has done something it swore it wouldn’t and deviated from NPHET advice.

There has been a marked change in the symbolic relationship between Government and NPHET. As Taoiseach, Mr Varadkar held press conferences alongside Harris and Holohan. Now politicians go it alone. But that has not reduced profile. Dr Holohan, Dr Ronan Glynn and others hold their own press conferences. Mary Favier, a member of NPHET, was on Morning Ireland two mornings in a row in recent weeks suggesting pubs shouldn’t open.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who is virtually a bureaucrat himself and certainly a beast of the system, was, we thought, captured by NPHET.

But, incredibly, the clashes and contradictions between Government and NPHET have never been more palpable. Now, it is like a warring medieval state where a rival court is opposing the legitimate monarchy.

This column has consistently warned of the dangers of a bizarre bicameral coalition of NPHET and Government. The hubris of a bloated, unwieldy Government system that has evolved in this crisis met its knockout combination on Monday and Tuesday.

There is a solution – leadership. Martin lost control of his administration this week. He needs to investigate why, if NPHET says it warned the Government about the Delta variant, it was allowed make public an unviable vaccine bonus. And why it now denies that it recommended the cancellation of Communions and Confirmations.

NPHET is doing what it needs to do to survive in the ring, and is enacting a rope-a-dope on the Government. Mr Martin, whose father was a successful boxer, needs to drag himself off the floor because, Man, this is the wrong place to get tired.