The Government’s “evaluation” of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic is to be entirely voluntary, will have no powers of compellability and its secretariat will be drawn from the Civil Service, a spokesman confirmed on Wednesday night.
At its meeting, the Cabinet approved the terms of reference for the evaluation exercise and approved the nomination of Prof Anne Scott as chairwoman.
In answer to questions at the weekly post-Cabinet briefing, the Government spokesman said it would be up to Prof Scott and the other members of the “evaluation panel” how its processes were run, but repeatedly confirmed that it was “not a statutory inquiry”, had no legal powers and would depend on people agreeing voluntarily to take part.
It is expected there may be public hearings, but he said that would be a matter for the evaluation panel.
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The spokesman would not be drawn on whether there could be televised hearings, as happened in the UK, or if text and WhatsApp messages between senior politicians and officials would form part of the evidence.
He said both the Taoiseach and Tánaiste had said they would co-operate fully with the exercise.
The long-awaited inquiry – or “evaluation” – has been promised since before the pandemic ended. Its establishment, however, has been repeatedly delayed amid fears among politicians and officials that it would become an exercise in finger-pointing and a public excavation of policy mistakes.
“The point is to prepare the State for future pandemics,” the Government spokesman said. He added that he expected the initial work to be up and running in a matter of weeks.
It is expected the secretariat for the evaluation, which will be set up under the auspices of the Department of the Taoiseach, would be drawn from across the Civil Service. He rejected the idea that this would involve the Civil Service effectively “marking its own homework”.
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Chairwoman Prof Anne Scott is a former nurse and academic leader who has served in a number of senior positions in British and Irish universities and whose last appointment was as vice-president for equality and diversity in Galway University.
In a statement issued on Wednesday night, the Government said the evaluation would “strengthen decision-making and transparency; assist in assessing and balancing the complexity of potential trade-offs along with the need for speed and agility; and provide a framework to ensure democratic processes and civil rights are safeguarded in context of whole of society responses to rapidly moving threats of this scale and duration”.
The terms of reference suggest that it should “identify lessons learned, including what worked well” and evaluate the performance of the health system, of government decision-making and the impact on society.
A specific module will be devoted to the experience of long-term care facilities, such as nursing homes.
Prof Scott has been asked to present her report to the Taoiseach in 12-18 months, but the evaluation may also present interim reports on specific modules.
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