Dr Holohan said his wife had particularly been upset by remarks made by Mr Varadkar on the Claire Byrne Show on television when he said members of NPHET (the National Public Health Emergency Team) would never have to go on furlough like workers affected by lockdowns – while suggesting some members had usurped the role of Government.
Dr Holohan in his book said his wife Emer interpreted the comments as being personalised against her husband and was very upset. She was terminally ill at the time and has since died.
“I acknowledge, and I think I did before, that I went too far in my remarks in that particular interview, almost three years ago now,” the Taoiseach said in New York.
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“I was very angry at the time at the way the advice from NPHET had changed very dramatically overnight. The Government wasn’t consulted on that. It was briefed to media before the Government was informed, which left a lot of us (in Government) very frustrated,” Mr Varadkar said in New York.
“But it wasn’t right of me to make personalised criticisms about members and to question their motivations and their understanding as to how decisions impact on people.
“That wasn’t fair, and I’m certainly sorry for that and regret it.”
The Taoiseach also acknowledged serious Government mistakes during the pandemic – and said it was a mistake to lift lockdown for Christmas 2020.
“In relation to the first Christmas lockdown (in 2020) I think on reflection, both NPHET and the Government made the wrong call,” he said.
“NPHET proposed one form of reopening, which would have meant a lot of social interactions and we in Government proposed a different reopening plan, which involves some hospitality and some private houses,” Mr Varadkar said.
“In retrospect, there shouldn’t have been any opening up at all, because of the Alpha variant (which aggressively appeared in Britain in late November). And that changed things fundamentally,” he said.
“But let’s not forget the advice from NPHET at the time initially was that the Alpha variant was not an issue of concern,” he said.
On Dr Holohan’s criticism of the lifting of lockdown for a ‘meaningful’ Christmas, as politicians put it, Mr Varadkar said: “I think everyone involved in that time should recognise that we got most things right and did a good job for the country.”
He added: “We are going to have a Covid inquiry. I’ll look for the Terms of Reference to be brought to Government in the next few weeks. And I think that inquiry will be able to explore a lot of the different issues.
“It’s not going to be about putting anyone in the dock. There won’t be a witch hunt. But it will be about finding out what we did right and what we did wrong.”
He added: “I remember at the very start of the pandemic, Paul Reid of the HSE saying that we’d probably get about 70pc of things right, and maybe 30pc of things wrong. And that was inevitable, given that nobody had dealt with a pandemic of this nature before. And I think we did [get that ratio of right to wrong].
“Bear in mind that in Ireland we had one of the lowest excess mortality rates in the world, much lower than many of our neighbours. And also our economy recovered and bounced back much more quickly.
“So I think, in the end, all of us involved in making those decisions, whether it was HSE, or NPHET or the Department of Health and the Government, we took the right ones most of the time.”
Mr Varadkar said however: “But nobody was always right. And we were slow on uptake with masks and some aspects of lockdown were probably not necessary. I think schools were closed for too long, particularly special schools.
“I’m not sure it was necessary to suspend construction and homebuilding for so long. And a lot of that was driven by public health advice. So, you know, I’d hope everyone will be reflective about their role during that period.”
The Taoiseach said he hoped the inquiry would be established by the end of the year, and a panel of names for the chairperson would shortly be drawn up.
“It’s remarkable how much of the work has been done already. There have been 20 or 30 different reviews done by different Government agencies or Departments to date,” he said. “They’ve been very discrete [standalone]. But a lot of the background work is done already. But I think fundamentally, it’s about understanding what did happen during that difficult two or three year period – what we did right, what we did wrong, and what we can learn for future major public health emergencies, which will happen but I think will be different.”
He said the inquiry should as well to consider some of the long term impact of Covid. “I think we’re experiencing some of the longer term impacts of the lockdowns and the closures, whether it was delayed health care, and all the problems that’s causing now, the loss of a significant period of housing construction, children being away from school for so long, and the impact that had on their mental health,” Mr Varadkar said.
“I was always of the view at the time that we needed to take into account not just the short term effects of restrictive measures like lockdowns, but also the long term impact that might have on society.”
