The independent evaluation of how Ireland handled the Covid-19 pandemic expects to publish its final report before the year is out, according to RTE.ie. The review, known as the COVID-19 Evaluation, gave that timeline as it held a live-streamed roundtable debate on Monday morning on how future national emergencies should be handled.
The event ran from 10am to 12.45pm and was carried on the Evaluation's website, covid19evaluation.ie, and its YouTube channel. It brought together specialists in risk, hazard and behavioural research to discuss lessons for future crises.
Why it matters
The review is the State's main effort to draw lessons from a period that reshaped Irish life. Restrictions ran for roughly two years, from early March 2020 to the end of February 2022. During the official reporting period, more than 1.7 million confirmed cases were recorded in Ireland and more than 9,600 deaths were reported, RTE.ie reports. Globally, estimated deaths exceeded seven million.
The evaluation is also examining the human cost that persists. Professor Anne Scott, who chairs the review, told the meeting that long-term residential care forms a dedicated module of the work and includes bereaved families. She said many of those people, along with members of the public more broadly, carry significant grief and trauma that is still being lived through today.
What the review has done so far
According to RTE.ie, the Evaluation has spent recent months meeting people central to the pandemic response. Those sessions included Taoiseach Micheál Martin; former taoiseach Leo Varadkar; former chief medical officer Dr Tony Holohan; and leading members of the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET).
The panel also met Tánaiste Simon Harris in connection with his time as health minister in the pandemic's early phase, and former health minister Stephen Donnelly. Meetings were held with past and present HSE figures, with Professor Philip Nolan, former chair of NPHET's Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group, and with Martin Fraser, former secretary general to the Government.
Professor Scott told the meeting that thousands of pages of submissions from Government departments and their agencies have been received, analysed and followed up with public officials where questions of interest arose. She said the review has tried to understand how decisions were taken, what evidence and circumstances shaped them, and how the response changed over time.
The panel has described its meetings with decision makers and officials as very valuable, saying they provided insight into the complexities and trade-offs behind key choices, according to RTE.ie.
The Evaluation was established by the Government in late 2024. It is a non-statutory review, chaired by Professor Scott and supported by a team of experts. Its work has included public consultations, individual submissions and several roundtable discussions, the first of which was live-streamed in March. It is now in its final phase, weighing all the material gathered through that engagement.
Scientists should inform, not instruct, adviser argues
Among the speakers at Monday's debate were Dr Caroline McMullan, who designed Ireland's National Risk Assessment; Lucy Easthope, Professor in Practice of Risk and Hazard at the University of Durham; and Professor Pete Lunn, head of the Behavioural Research Unit at the ESRI.
Professor Lunn argued that any future pandemic planning must reconsider whether it is sensible to place ministers in a position where science is presented as dictating a particular decision. He said that is the wrong approach, and that scientists should set out the available options and the supporting evidence rather than directing politicians on what to do.
He also said future emergency planning should build in ways of bringing people together so they recognise they face a shared and serious situation.
Professor Scott said ahead of the debate that preparedness for future crises needs to take account of how people experienced and behaved during the pandemic, how Irish society and the economy operate, and the country's collective resilience, human rights and democratic institutions.
The Evaluation says it will shortly publish two consultation reports on long-term residential care, including accounts shared by a number of bereaved families.
Covid-19 is still circulating in Ireland. In the week before the report, 203 cases, 70 hospitalisations and one death were recorded, RTE.ie reports. Vaccination against current strains is being offered through the HSE's winter programme alongside the flu vaccine.
What to watch: the publication of the two long-term residential care consultation reports, followed by the final report expected by year-end.
