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Oireachtas Covid committee chairman, Clare’s Independent TD Michael McNamra has said politicians have put the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) in an impossible position.
At the end of the day, NPHET was there to provide public health advice to the government and politicians had to make decisions, he told Newstalk Breakfast.
But McNamara said he feared the politicians would have put NPHET in an “impossible position” because “if they are wrong, they will be nailed to the cross.”
For politicians it was convenient for someone else to make the decisions because if they (NPHET) were wrong, “they may be the scapegoat,” he added.
Mr McNamara said Ireland had learned valuable lessons during the pandemic and “we now know that nursing homes must and can be protected.
“Perhaps as a society we are learning to live with Covid,” he said.
However, he was concerned that Ireland remained the only country that had completely shut down its hotel industry.
If there was evidence that pubs were more dangerous places, people could make their own decisions about whether or not to enter one.
McNamara said he thought people should be informed of the risks “and let them decide.”
However, he was hoping there would be no return to the scene in acute care hospitals earlier this year.
“We cannot keep cornering society and cornering people. We have to trust people to make informed decisions.
“We are social animals. Young people will meet and congregate and we have to accept human behavior. ”
McNamara said the restrictions had had a profound impact on people’s mental health and the economy.
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