Varadkar’s surprise attack on NPHET a bolt from the blue

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

There was no doubt in which direction Leo Varadkar was pointing his finger during an extraordinary appearance on RTE’s Claire Byrne Live on Monday night. He launched into a full-blooded attack on NPHET, and by extension on Chief Medical Officer, Tony Holohan, for its Sunday bombshell that the country needed to move to Level 5.

Varadkar might have been talking in his role Minister for Enterprise, but the public might not see that, seeing it as another example of straight-talking Leo sticking the boot in.

Members of NPHET were taking aback by the ferocity of the criticism – it was a filleting, pure and simple. There was no pulling of punches, no euphemisms, no sugaring of the words. The 24-hour period between late Sunday and Monday was a fiasco for Irish politics and one that could have long-term consequences.

“The whole thing was a sh**fest,” one Cabinet minister reflected ruefully. “It should never have happened in the way that it did.”

There is no doubt that, downstream, this episode will have consequences for the relationship between the two entities. At this moment in time, none of the outcomes look good.

Where did the blame lie? Was it the National Public Health Emergency Team, which made an announcement on Sunday evening that came like a bolt out of the blue – the entire country should be put to Level 5 with immediate effect?

Or was it the Government for not having a fit-for-purpose process in place to make sure such information did not go into the public domain in the way that it did?

Let’s look at the substance of Varadkar’s argument. His argument was NPHET had landed the government with a Level 5 recommendation “out of the blue” without prior consultation. In other words, by its unilateral action, it had almost backed the Government in a corner.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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