Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

I still vividly remember Martin's response to a parlimentary question by Mattie McGrath on that very topic about a year in, Martin scolded him like he was a schoolboy "Will you get real" he said to McGrath...of course, the talentless Martin actually regressed during the pandemic, instead of growing with the situation, he regressed into his school principle mode, which is his level really.

We've been badly served by one of the most inexperienced/incompetent cabinets in the history of our state, it will cost us financially but more importantly through much greater loss of life in all demographics. Shame on them all.

Making a prediction that we will witness greater excess death is based on the fact that our hospital waiting lists are nearly at 1,000,000 at this stage, up from about 500,000 (which was bad enough as it was) is hardly a statement without foundation.

We select our Ministers based on geography and gender, we have Ministers in their early 30s, we have one Minster who had never spent a single day in Dail Eireann, she went straight into cabinet, another Minister disappeared for 6 months during the emergency.

So ya, you can hardly see rigorous debate around the Cabinet table given none of them would have the political capital to do so...which meant our unelected incompetent bureaucrats got away with imposing one of the most severe restrictions on any population in Europe on one of the youngest populations in Europe for a virus that disproportionately affects the aged.

Ha ha haaa...anti vax agenda....will you stop!!! You are a joke!!!

You might believe in fairy tales like doubling the hospital waiting lists to nearly 1,000,000 people won't have impact on excess deaths over the next few years or that Irish Health Bureaucrats, some of THE most incompetent bureaucrats in Europe, were somehow controlling the spread of an airbourne virus for over two years, but too many of us don't!!!

Anti-Vax!!! Another shameless attempt to discredit an opinion you don't like...pathetic!!!

It is obvious you have opinions contrary to all the major medical authorities in the world on Covid.

Both on restrictions and vaccines.

You were asked if you accepted the evidence for vaccines for providing protection against severe covid. You dodged the question again by saying "People who think they need one" which makes it sound like a placebo not a valid medical vaccine. That is not the same thing as accepting the overwhelming scientific consensus on the effectiveness of the vaccines.

So, no obsession and I won't rise to the bait of your insult. Just I can see through your statements and recognise deflections when I see them.

The point of the question is that if you don't accept that the vaccines are important in combating covid, it informs your attacks on the Irish response. Yet seemingly the worst civil servants in Europe were able to manage this rollout as well as if not better than our peers. Something which you give zero credit to.

Similarly on restrictions, you attack the Irish response, and yet all the major health authorities in the world attempted to control the spread of the virus through restrictions. The specifics of your claim that not one had an effect has already been challenged and discredited on this thread. But the main point is that your opinion in therefore contrary to all those authorities, not just the Irish response, so portraying it as some solo policy of incompetent Irish civil servants is entirely without foundation as you did in previous posts.

If you don't think that lockdowns or restrictions have any role in controlling covid, or vaccines either - of course you would think the Irish response was incompetent.

But that is contrary to overwhelming scientific consensus and evidence.

‘Perceived issues’? Nothing perceived about them, they are abundantly evident and real. As to apportioning blame and looking back - I personally don’t find it depressing and it doesn’t preclude viewing the future with hope.

It may mean we don’t find ourselves at the mercy of tunnel vision, knee-jerk policy making in the future. Maybe some checks and balances applied in advance.

Why did so many non-elderly people who had Covid in this country need to undergo hospital treatment for it? Is it because of the effects of the widespread consumption of alcohol and fast food?

What is the point of that claim?

There is no connection between vitamin intake and the consumption of takeaway food, e.g. Supermacs.

There's no mention of fast food or vitamins in that article. Can you back up your claim?

I did, the 7 comments make no mention of fast food consumption being encouraged, so what's your point?

The last two an a half years are an example of what it will prove to be catastrophic misapplication of ‘precautionary principle’. By taking actions and assuming the worst about the virus of a largely unknown characteristic initially on one end, the authorities failed to consider the negative consequences on the other. They were utterly blind to the harms of lockdown and related restrictions.

It is because the regular, open scientific discourse was suppressed. The dissenting scientist who questioned the narrative were quickly labelled ‘granny killers’ or worse and their ideas were ridiculed. I don’t remember anybody getting an equal chance to challenge predictions of Ferguson, McConkey or NPHET modelling for that matter.

All the information that the politicians had available on hand was only confirming the initial course of action. In a way they were duped into thinking that they were following the science. What they did not know is that science was not mature or complete enough.

Can we do math on how many lives were saved Vs how many will be lost?