*Michael McNamara TD. Photograph: Eamon Ward
A Clare TD has slammed the Minister for Health and the Government for “a wanton waste of exchequer funding”.
On Tuesday evening, Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly (FF) tweeted that he was to ask the Oireachtas to extend emergency COVID-19 powers for a further three months, “those who extend this extension are behaving recklessly”.
Deputy Michael McNamara (IND) took umbrage with the wording when speaking in the Dáil shortly after. “If the Minister wants to talk about recklessness, it is reckless to run down a health service the way our health service has been run down. The Minister did not run it down, but there are three members of the Cabinet in which he sits who had collective responsibility for running it down. The Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, when he was the Minister for Health, came up with the HSE as a way to spend money on reports. The Tánaiste, Deputy Leo Varadkar, when he was the Minister could not get out of there fast enough. The Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, caused a general election when he was the Minister for Health. We thought he was the most inept Minister for Health ever, or at least we were told that by some Fianna Fáil canvassers before the last election”.
He questioned the progress on additional capacity that Minster Donnelly referenced during the now defunct COVID-19 Oireachtas committee. “Cholera hospitals were built in this city in response to a cholera outbreak. TB sanatoria were built all over the State in response to that. We had €23 billion. What was the €23 billion spent on apart from masks that are now clogging up our sewerage systems, which was junk that was brought in from China? What was the €23 billion spent on? We have nothing to show for it. Such a wanton waste of Exchequer funding is simply reckless”.
“Above all, it is reckless to fail to look at the science and to pretend that we are following the science but instead lurch from hysterical reaction to hysterical reaction,” the Scariff native added.
Minister Donnelly did not use the word ‘reckless’ when responding in the Dáil Chamber. “The Government has always been conscious that public health measures being imposed are proportionate to the harm the virus represents. It is critical that we maintain the ability, on a temporary basis, to respond to the evolving trajectory of Covid”.
