TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said he still has “some” of his text messages from the Covid-19 pandemic period.
Varadkar, who expects a non-statutory inquiry into the Government’s handling of the pandemic to get “well under way” this year, made the remarks during his visit to Washington DC for St Patrick’s Day.
A memo on the terms of reference for the inquiry is to be brought to Cabinet in the coming weeks.
In the UK, the inquiry has focused on disagreements between politicians and health officials during that time, with much of the spotlight on back-and-forth exchanges that played out over text messages.
However, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has previously said he does not expect the Irish inquiry to be similar to that which has played out in the UK.
Earlier in the week, Professor Philip Nolan, the former chairman of the the Government’s virus modelling unit, told reporters that he does not know if he still has all his text messages from the pandemic.
Asked if he had all his own messages, Varadkar said: “I’d have some but I would never particularly conduct Government business on WhatsApp or text messages.
“[It would] be more kind of meetings at five o’clock, that type of thing.”
The review of how Ireland handled the pandemic will analyse the government’s response, how hospitals and nursing homes coped and the effect it had on society and the economy.
There will also be a “particular focus” on nursing homes.
It is likely that frontline health workers and families who lost loved ones will also be heard at the inquiry.
One of the challenges for the inquiry will be finding five people to sit on the evaluation panel.
Varadkar has said that, ideally, the people would have had no involvement in managing the pandemic and not expressed prejudicial views.
The Taoiseach has previously said that the inquiry will have some public elements, but will not assign blame to any individual.
He said that it would not be in the best interests of the country to hold a multi-year statutory inquiry which would cost tens of millions of euro.
The view is shared by Tánaiste Micheal Martin, who has been critical of the UK’s “adversarial legal inquiry” into the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’ve always made the point that if you go in with this sort of interrogatory approach, the next pandemic or the next major crisis you’ll have everybody looking over their shoulders in terms of ‘how would this look in the context of a future inquiry if I behave this way or that way’,” Martin said in January.
“Whereas what you want people to do in the midst of a crisis is make decisions based on the best information and evidence before them.”
With reporting from Press Association
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