What about the children of the 40 somethings do you think they might be missing out on some things and that the 40 somethings might care about them?
Anybody got Blue Hughâs Holohan/Donnelly article from today?
Looks like the security guard might have been playing hide the sausage with one of the quarantined guests. Same thing led to the big outbreak in Melbourne last year.
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Vito up to no good again
Have people given up on climbing mountains for their weekends?
Yes, the wife said she wasnât in the mood this morning so I had to climb down
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One technique Iâve been using to combat the COVID blues is something I call an âimagination holiday.â
When Iâm out on my daily walk around Dublin 7 and/or Dublin 9, for the billionth day in a row, surrounded by grey roads, grey buildings and grey skies, I imagine Iâm somewhere else.
Today I was in Vegas. Tomorrow Iâll be in Sydney.
I drink a lot too.
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âlet the virus offâ
You are probably the most lethally dense individual in Ireland â and sovereign sociopath. You should really be kept chained in a kennel â all the time, virus or no virus.
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Revealed: Dr Tony Holohanâs warning to Health Minister on âweakâ border controls as emails and texts reveal tensions in the war on Covid-19
independent.ie | January 31, 2021 02:30 AM
Expand Close Health Minister Stephen Donnelly / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Health Minister Stephen Donnelly
Holohan told the Health Minister that those figures would be made public that evening, that his team would be looking at the numbers in more detail over the day and that he was available to discuss should he wish.
Donnelly did not text back. Seven hours later Holohan texted again: âMinister, grateful if we could have a word. Finalising statement re cases. Thanks Tony.â
It is unclear if Donnelly spoke to his chief adviser on the pandemic at all that day. His spokesman said it was ânot possible to source at this point the telephone recordsâ for October 10.
Donnelly did, however, speak to the Sunday Independent that afternoon for an article that was to be published the following day in which growing concerns about his performance were highlighted.
That article, based on interviews with more than a dozen ministers, TDs and officials, painted a picture of a minister overly sensitive to criticism, lacking in empathy, and whose condescending approach had alienated and annoyed party and Coalition colleagues, officials and opposition TDs.
The Sunday Independent can this weekend reveal how the relationship between Donnelly and Holohan appeared to become strained and somewhat tense over October and November last year as the nation grappled with a second wave of the virus that would eventually result in a second lockdown. Emails and text messages released under Freedom of Information detail a number of terse and somewhat testy exchanges. Most notable is the CMOâs stark warning in early November about the âweaknessâ of the Stateâs border controls that left him unable to assure the minister that Ireland was protected from new strains of the virus. This was just weeks before the first cases of the so-called UK variant - now the dominant one in the country - was confirmed in Ireland.
No response
The text messages released to this newspaper also reveal Holohanâs concern about some of the ministerâs public health messaging.
On October 12 he texted Donnelly to say that case numbers in Dublin were âup again as it has been over the weekendâ and said he would âurge caution on your public messaging re rates in Dublinâ. The previous day, Donnelly had told RTĂ of âpositive newsâ in the capital where the R number - the reproductive rate of the virus - stood at 1. On Twitter, he said the latest figures âsuggest that transmission is slowing in Dublinâ.
Donnelly did not respond to Holohanâs text on that issue. Eleven days later, on Thursday, October 22, Holohan texted Donnelly to inform him the R number for Dublin had gone up to between 1.2 and 1.3. Donnelly responded with a thumbs-up emoji.
By that stage the Government had decided to lockdown for six weeks. As the measures came into effect in the early hours of Thursday, October 22, the CMO sent a lengthy message to Donnelly at 5.32am ahead of an appearance on Morning Ireland.
The minister was due to address controversy over the HSEâs contact tracing system effectively collapsing the previous weekend as more than 2,000 people who tested positive were told to alert their own close contacts.
Holohanâs message contained six bullet points conveying his concern that the question of being able to âcontact trace this number of cases or not completely misses the pointâ. The message of the Level 5 restrictions for six weeks was, he wrote in all caps, that âWE ARE ALL CLOSE CONTACTSâ. He concluded that âthis is a crucial point which is being totally missedâ and said he was available to talk in advance of the interview. Donnelly sent a brief response: âThanks for that Tony.â
As the nation settled into its latest lockdown, written correspondence between the minister and his chief medical officer, which had been almost daily between the CMO sending the latest case numbers or the minister asking for information on an issue, became less frequent.
The CMO informed Donnelly of a positive case in Portlaoise prison on October 29. The following day they discussed the need to share more data about the virus between EU countries ahead of Donnellyâs participation in an EU health ministers meeting.
Dublin dodge
Just after lunchtime on Sunday, November 1, Donnelly sent a lengthy email to Holohan with a list of 10 issues he wanted the CMOâs office and Nphet to âinvestigate further as a matter of urgencyâ. The email stretches to three pages when printed out and covers issues from the impact of poor ventilation on the spread of the virus to better contact tracing and use of rapid testing to examining occupancy rates on school transport.
Holohan responded the next day, saying he âcompletelyâ shared the ministerâs view on these issues, but noted the issues were âto some extentâ already under consideration either by Nphet or the Department/HSE. He said he hoped to be able to be in a position to give him an initial response across all areas by the following evening.
Holohan did not respond in writing to a separate email Donnelly sent the previous day asking for his position on coursing clubs. Donnelly had included correspondence which stated that coursing clubs were âfuriousâ that they had to suspend their season. The correspondent, whose identity was not disclosed, wrote: âAgain the regulations make no sense and are not consistent. I can walk through the countryside with my dog but I cannot bring a gun?â
Donnelly sent another email on November 4 asking Holohan to provide a view on the matter. There is no record of Holohan responding to the ministerâs query about hare coursing. âThis was a matter that was being raised in the DĂĄil and Minister Donnelly was seeking an expert view on it,â the ministerâs spokesperson said yesterday.
The following day, November 5, Donnelly asked Holohan via text if Nphet could discuss ideas for areas where case numbers were not falling, in particular local electoral areas in Dublin. The minister said he planned to convene a meeting involving the two of them, the HSE and local TDs to âsee what can be done to engage the groups who appear to have had enough of the Covid measures. Would be great to have Nphetâs advice going into thatâ.
But the CMO texted back to say he had âreservationsâ about such an approach.
âWe have no response capacity at that level. We are focusing on building public health capacity at a geographic level of public health departments which will be out (sic) best means of having a genuine localised response capacity for when we re-establish control of this disease,â he said, adding he was happy to discuss it after the Nphet meeting.
Minutes of the Nphet meeting that day do not record any discussion of Donnellyâs idea.
The following day, November 6, focus had shifted to an emerging issue in Denmark where a new strain of coronavirus was found to have transmitted from mink to humans, resulting in the Danish government announcing a cull of more than 17 million mink.
It was the exchanges between Donnelly and his CMO over this issue that would open up the ground for Holohan to restate his and Nphetâs long-held concerns about overseas travel in a manner notably more strident than he has stated publicly before.
It began at 8.14am when Donnelly texted Holohan to ask if there were âany considerations re the three mink farms in Ireland?â.
Holohan responded that he didnât know, before adding: âBut my primary concern first is implications for human health.â
He said that a risk assessment was being carried out and that he would have a position later in the day, noting that the UKâs decision to enforce a 14-day quarantine on arrivals âdoesnât appear to make senseâ.
The UK government had at that time announced a ban on all non-UK citizens coming from Denmark, imposing a strict 14-day isolation requirement on its citizens returning from Denmark, and anyone in their household, with fines of up to ÂŁ1,000 for non-compliance.
Email records show that Northern Ireland Health Minister Robin Swann wrote to Donnelly on Saturday, November 7, requesting that the same measures be introduced in Ireland to âensure this strain does not reach our shoresâ.
Swann had previously complained to Donnelly that âDublin dodgeâ was being used by Northern Ireland residents travelling through the Republic to avoid quarantine requirements.
But Donnelly, citing legal advice, had argued that passenger locator form information obtained from passengers in Dublin could not be shared with authorities in Belfast.
Noting this position in his November 7 letter, Swann urgently asked him to contact all Northern Ireland-bound travellers to ensure they were aware of their need to self- isolate.
That same evening, at 8.13pm, Donnelly emailed the CMO and officials asking that the public health team engage directly with their counterparts in the North and the UK âas a matter or urgencyâ to understand the UK position, which he described as âdecidedly more robustâ and the rationale for it. He attached a scientific paper on the mink issue that Transport Minister Eamon Ryan had been given by his UK counterpart.
Dr Holohan sent a response just after 9pm that evening noting that âas discussed yesterdayâ, he and public health officials had been engaging with their Northern and UK counterparts. âWe have a good understanding of UK decision to apply a full travel ban in respect of Denmark,â he wrote. He added that the HSE, the Departments of Agriculture, Transport, and Foreign Affairs and the port authorities âhave the measures in place which you have been briefed onâ.
Controls
In concluding his email, Holohan gave a stark warning: "In respect of our ability to respond more effectively at this stage, I must point to the relative weakness of measures we can apply at points of entry to Ireland in respect of travellers. These are advisory only and do not allow the kind of action undertaken by the UK.
âOur Covid border control measures do not give assurance to me as Chief Medical Office (sic) and as a result provide me no basis for assuring you as Minister for Health that we have appropriate public health controls in place to protect Ireland from importation of this disease. This is particularly concerning now that such a potentially serious development as mutation may be has arisen.â
The following day, Sunday, November 8, Donnelly sent the CMO a terse response, saying âit would have been useful if you had aired your concerns, or indeed any concerns whatsoever in regard to border controls, when asked for your view at the Cabinet sub-committee some weeks ago where the border control protocols were being discussed and agreedâ.
Holohan wrote back to Donnelly at 4.33pm that afternoon to say that, as he recalled, the Cabinet sub-committee meeting was about implementing the EU framework for travel and what measures would apply for testing.
He said his âoverriding concernâ at that time was the ârapidly rising scale of the disease domesticallyâ. He pointed out that international travel had been a âmajor concern in early summer when disease levels were very low hereâ and that Nphet had made recommendations to Government. He said that public health officials âstill have concerns about one-off tests and how we can be satisfied as to their validity as a basis for setting aside the advisory on restrictions of movement for travellersâ who are coming from countries designated by the EU as orange and red under the blocâs traffic light system.
He pointed out that these concerns were articulated by him at the Cabinet committee meeting and had been raised subsequently. âWeâll maintain our focus on travel as an issue which will increase in importance as the disease status may improve domestically,â he wrote. He concluded by suggesting a meeting the following day to go through these issues.
There is no record of Donnelly responding to this email.
Indeed, Holohanâs concerns about the Stateâs border controls had been well ventilated publicly and privately to the Government last summer.
In a letter to Donnellyâs predecessor Simon Harris on May 8 last, Nphet advised that work be undertaken to introduce âa range of more stringent requirements related to travel from overseasâ, including: mandatory completion of passenger locator forms; restrictions on non-essential travel from all non-EEA and UK countries with exemptions for Irish citizens; a âmandatory regime of self-isolation for 14 days at a designated facilityâ for all overseas arrivals with exceptions for supply-chain workers and those travelling to other jurisdictions such as the North; and a public information campaign to deter all non-essential travel.
Resistance
These recommendations formed the basis of a memo that Harris brought to Cabinet the following week. But there was strong resistance to the idea of mandatory quarantine in hotels. âWho will guard that centre? It will make Direct Provision look like a tea party,â then justice minister Charlie Flanagan is quoted as telling the meeting in Shane Rossâs book In Bed With The Blueshirts. Flanagan will not comment on that account - but does not deny it. âWould armed gardaĂ or the army enforce the mandatory hotel stay?â he told the Sunday Independent this weekend. âComparisons with New Zealand and Australia are wide of the mark. We are an island with strong business and people-to-people links with Europe and the world.â
Ultimately the Cabinet agreed at that point in mid-May to task officials in the Departments of Health, Justice, Transport, Foreign Affairs and the Attorney Generalâs office to examine the practicalities of the mandatory quarantine regime.
Two senior figures with knowledge of the internal government debate at the time said that resistance from some ministers and senior officials, and concerns over its workability given the open Border with the North meant, as one put it, âit didnât go anywhereâ.
This weekend Donnellyâs spokesperson did not respond to specific questions about whether he raised the CMOâs November 7 warning about border control measures with Government colleagues and pushed for swifter introduction of quarantine measures.
Donnellyâs spokesperson referred to Ireland having agreed to the EU âtraffic light systemâ in September and applying 14-day restriction measures on arrivals from orange and red countries on October 20. They added that on November 9, âthe Government decided to impose a two-week self-isolation period for people arriving from Denmark and to continue to proceed with the EU-wide approach for other countries.â
The spokesperson noted that Nphetâs position on travel and border measures âhas been clear for some timeâ.
âIt has advocated for this at press briefings, in published letters and directly to senior government figures. This includes calling for hotel quarantining as far back as last May 2020 in a letter to Mr Harris. The EU-wide approach was designed to combat the spread of a virus which had already mutated several times, including Italian and Spanish mutations of the Wuhan strain. The flu virus mutates from year to year. There are numerous different strains of the common cold,â they said.
They also cited recommendations and advice in Nphet letters on travel over the past year, including ârenewed consideration of the area of international travelâ and the âimportance of protecting the progress the country has achieved through application of Level 5 restrictions and of avoiding a reseeding of cases through international travelâ.
The Government moved last week to introduce a limited set of mandatory quarantine requirements that are still weeks away from being introduced. The Department of Health has been put in charge of the new regime with Donnelly described by the Taoiseach at the Cabinet meeting last week as âthe lead minister for quarantineâ.
Asked to characterise the ministerâs relationship with his chief medical officer yesterday, Donnellyâs spokesperson said: âThe minister has an excellent working relationship with the CMO. Emails and text messages from any period are just a small part of their communications - they speak regularly by phone and in person and have numerous interactions in the department together, including significant briefings as required.â
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So the Guardian now want strict border controls in th UK. Its a funny old world.
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Maybe heâs half pulling the piss?
If he is, he has the same level of taste as Bernard Manning.
The kangos who so desire Mad Max world should remember the deficient do not last ten minutes in such an arena.
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They donât want them foreigners coming in
This is quite true. Thereâs young lads all over the country missing out on the formative riding years of their lives. Nobody seems to care what will become of them?
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Filthy foreigners bringing the covid in.
3/4âs of the lads here missed out on riding during the formative riding years of their lives too tbf, and they had no pandemic to blame.
A young lad nowadays can get his knob polished simply by swiping on tinder.
Theyâll be grand.
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What about lads who are shite with women and wouldnât be doing much riding anyway? Or lads who just stay in on the x box all day even pre covid. Could there be seperate less strict restrictions for ladies men and big boozers?