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Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said he discussed the possibility of moving coronavirus restrictions in the state to Level 4 with Medical Director Dr. Tony Holohan on Sunday and told the Taoiseach ahead of the National Team meeting. Public Health Emergency later that day.
He said in a specially convened debate in the Dáil on Thursday night that the first time he heard mention of Level 5 restrictions was after the Nphet meeting.
In a dispute over the timing of events last weekend before Nphet issued the Level 5 recommendation, Donnelly told the Dáil: “I got a text message Saturday lunchtime from the medical director to say that he had called a meeting of Nphet for the following day. I texted the Taoiseach to let him know. “
Donnelly also confirmed that he told the Taoiseach that Nphet was considering recommending higher levels of Covid-19 restriction.
He told Sinn Féin TD Matt Carty, who asked him what he had said to Mr. Martin: “The information on Level 4 was relayed to the Taoiseach, yes.”
Framework
He said he texted Dr. Holohan early Sunday morning and they spoke on the phone.
“We discussed the current situation and the possibility of moving to Level 4. I conveyed my belief that it was important for Nphet to adhere to the parameters set out in the framework for each level. I contacted the Taoiseach afterwards.
“At around 7 pm I participated in a video call with the chief physician, the deputy chief physician, and the secretary general” of the Department of Health. It was then that I was informed of the recommendation to go to Level 5.
Finally, the Government decided on Monday to leave the restrictions at Level 3 for the entire country, with a greater application of them.
Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane asked in the Dáil why the minister did not “back down” when the medical director said he was so concerned that he might recommend moving to Level 4.
“The Taoiseach and Tánaiste said they were caught in the jump and that was obviously false,” he said.
Donnelly said: “Did I try to influence the recommendations? Of course I didn’t. I would never have done such a thing. Nphet’s job is to provide the best possible public health advice to the government. “
Labor TD Duncan Smith said “we are participating in a kind of Agatha Christie mystery of who said what and when.”
He said they had to discuss what happened last weekend because it had huge implications for people’s trust “in you, in Nphet, in the Taoiseach and in the Tánaiste, who played a particularly dirty role in this sad and petty affair.” .
Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Friday that the first thing he heard about Nphet’s recommendation to go to Level 5 was on the 9 p.m. news Sunday night.
He later spoke with the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar. “When something serious is happening in the country, Leo and I usually talk, we are the leader and the deputy leader of Fine Gael, so it is to be expected,” he told Morning Ireland of RTÉ radio.
“But the version of events that the Tánaiste has outlined and redrew in yesterday’s Dáil, is undoubtedly my experience of what happened, I am in government, I am in the Covid subcommittee.
“The more we talk about what happened last Sunday, the more we get distracted from what we really need to focus on. I think it has become very clear in recent days, the Government and Nphet are working together to try to protect people across the country, we must focus on working together rather than trying to investigate the divisions. “
Mr. Coveney said there was “a difference in perspective that clearly emanated from last weekend when the Medical Director and Nphet felt they should make a recommendation, the Government did not agree with that approach and was surprised by it.
“We have moved on from that and we are now focusing on what we should do, that is, work together to protect people and make sure that the government takes public health advice into account to the best of our ability, but also with the perspective broader of having to provide a country’s government in multiple different areas driven primarily by public health advice, but also with a host of other considerations and that’s what we’re doing. “
Squeeze in
On Monday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar criticized Dr. Holohan and Nphet saying that the recommendation to move to Level 5 had not been “thought through” and that there had been no “prior consultation” with the government.
Mr. Smith asked why Donnelly only called Dr. Holohan on Sunday morning.
“This was Tony Holohan returning two days earlier in a tightening of this pandemic. He has more trust from the public than any of us in this chamber, present or absent together. “
He also asked when the Minister saw Nphet’s letter recommending Level 5 restrictions “because it was the leak of that letter that caused the absolute panic.”
The minister said that on Sunday the chief doctor “had more information than he had on Saturday because at lunchtime on Saturday the numbers for the day would not have been available.”
Pressured by the leak of Nphet’s letter, Mr. Donnelly said: “I know that RTÉ reported Level 5 on the news at 9 o’clock.
“I don’t think they have gone into details about what is in the letter, so I don’t know if RTÉ had the letter. It is possible that they simply told them it was Level 5. ”In Nphet he met on Saturday.
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