Effects such as mental health issues and missed school and health screenings now being seen, Taoiseach says
A closed building site in Dublin during a Covid-19 lockdown. The Taoiseach has said the costs of the final shutdown in December 2021 may have outweighed the benefits. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill Photograph: Dara Mac Donaill / The Irish TimesMr Varadkar said the terms of reference for a Covid inquiry would go to Cabinet within the next couple of weeks so that it could begin its work early next year.
“One thing that I’d be particularly interested in as well is just to get an assessment as to what the long-term consequences of short-term decisions are,” he told reporters in Seoul during a trade mission to “Because I do remember at the time there was a lot of public pressure, and even pressure from the media and society in general to lock down quickly and lock down hard. I think we’re now, two or three years later, seeing some of the impacts, not of Covid the virus, but of the lockdowns on people’s mental health, on education, on the health service. Screenings that didn’t happen, diagnoses that didn’t happen.
The Taoiseach said that one of the challenges in setting up the inquiry was to find suitable people to sit on the panel, adding that the chair did not necessarily have to be a judge or a retired judge.“The terms of reference are going to be more about trying to establish exactly what happened, the facts of what happened during Covid and then what we did well, what we could do better, and how we could learn for future major public health crises,” Mr Varadkar said.
“I don’t think we want to go down a sort of judicial approach like they have in England. I’m not sure what’s going to be achieved by any of that. It might be very entertaining, but I’m not sure what’s actually going to be achieved by it.
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