Statement by Chair to the Independent COVID-19 Evaluation
Media Event, 22 May 2025
Good morning, and welcome everyone! Thank you for your interest in this work.
The independent COVID-19 Evaluation was established by Government, and I was appointed to chair the Evaluation Panel.
We have been tasked with examining Ireland’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and producing a final report guided by our Terms of Reference. The three objectives are to:
- Provide a factual account of the overall strategy and approach to planning for and handling of the pandemic in Ireland (covering the period 1 January 2020 to 28 February 2022);
- Identify lessons learned having regard to health and social care system performance and the wider Government response to managing and mitigating risks; and
- Recommend guiding principles and processes to guide future decision-making in the context of rapidly moving threat of this scale and duration.
We are here today to open the public consultation aspect of the COVID-19 Evaluation, announce the new panel members, and update you on other ongoing activity.
It is important to note that the COVID-19 Evaluation is independent, and expert led;
Over the coming 18 months we will be working to develop a full picture of Ireland’s response to the pandemic – How decisions were made and why, and what supports were put in place, alongside the lived experience of the public.
The overall approach to the Evaluation will be open and iterative to produce a thorough, independent assessment of Ireland’s response to the pandemic and the lessons that can be drawn from it to assist and strengthen future decision making. An assessment that reflects real life as well as official records.
We aim to obtain a clear, systemic understanding of how the Government, its departments and agencies, managed the pandemic, and to draw out learning particularly with regard to the performance of the health and social care system, and the wider government response to managing and mitigating risks.
Central to developing this full picture is gaining an holistic understanding of people’s experiences and how the pandemic impacted their lives. As part of this, today we are announcing that we are opening the public consultation strand of our programme of work.
It is open to all adults across the country and it can be accessed on our website: covid-19 evaluation.ie/share-your-experience.
It is vitally important that people participate in the public consultation and tell us about their experiences.
We are also confirming today three additional members of the Panel who have joined Professor David Heymann, who was appointed a number of weeks ago, and myself. These are Professor Bert Gordijn, Dr Nora Stecker and Dr Nat O’Connor.
We are very fortunate to have a strong, multidisciplinary panel of national and international experts, who had no direct involvement in the management of the Pandemic in Ireland. These panel members will being fresh eyes and significant expertise to the Evaluation, with a diverse range of skills in public health, social policy, ethics, human rights and economics. Further details of their backgrounds are available on our website.
I should just add that the Panel has the ability to expand or access further specific expertise as our programme of work evolves.
The COVID 19-pandemic affected us all – but had a profound effect on some.
In the early stages of the pandemic much was unknown, and evidence was thin or non-existent in many areas. The pandemic, the interventions to control or mitigate it, and the evidence to support those interventions, evolved – sometimes rapidly and sometimes less so.
Our decision-makers had to grapple with, and weigh up, the evidence at points in time, and, on-balance, decide what was best to do in the circumstances, in the best interest of society.
Decisions were made and implemented that significantly impacted our daily lives, and our freedom, restricting our ability to live our lives as we wished. Women gave birth alone – without partner or support person, schools, creches and further and higher education institutions were closed, socialising and travel were restricted, our lives moved online, weddings were postponed, funerals became very isolating, solitary affairs, hospital visits were restricted, as was our ability to spend time with loved ones in their last days and hours of life. These restrictions were deemed necessary to ‘flatten the curve’, to slow down the spread of infection and save lives.
This evaluation gives us a real opportunity to learn from what worked well and what did not. What the impacts of the pandemic were, direct and indirect. To shape future decision making to make it more inclusive, and holistic, grounded in compassion.
This is an unparalleled opportunity to really impact how we approach future crises! Let’s grasp it with both hands!
It is really important that we hear what living through the pandemic, living through the restrictions, and accompanying supports, was like for ordinary people across the country. What was the lived experience? It is vital that we listen to and learn from this experience.
This independent COVID-19 Evaluation is important for many reasons – firstly, not everyone had the same experience during the pandemic. So it is important that we hear from the public about their experience and combine that with existing documentation, including national and international research, and engage directly with key decision-makers – so we, as a country, can understand what worked, what didn’t and the impact on people’s lives.
Only we, as individual members of society, can provide the insights decision-makers need, to assess the human cost and experience of those decisions, interventions and supports. Such insights into the lived-experience of the impacts of the pandemic, and the impact of the restrictions, requirements, interventions used to control and/or mitigate it, on people of all ages and from all areas of society, are vitally important in informing and moderating planned approaches to future emergencies.
Secondly, we need to develop and document a clear understanding of how the Government and its departments and agencies managed the pandemic and draw out the relevant learnings in order to inform future decision-making.
Lastly, the Evaluation is a non-statutory independent body which allows us to engage in a non-adversarial manner to build a detailed understanding of Ireland’s response across health, care, community, social and economic systems without assigning individual blame.
Many frontline workers and decision makers worked extraordinarily hard during the pandemic, at great cost to themselves and their families. Our lives often depended on them. We are likely to need them again in our future – let us offer them all the support, insights and guidance that we can – rather than paralyse them into inactivity due to fear!
It would be at best foolhardy of us not to have learned adequately from the management and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals, families, groups and on society; should we be faced with similar type scenarios in 5, 10 or even 50 years’ time. We need to build on the experiences and learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic to shape and ground our responses to future similar challenges, emergencies and crises.
We owe it to our children and our children’s children to learn these lessons well and plan effectively, not only for our future, but also for theirs.
Background work into the extensive and often unequal impacts of the pandemic on individual and groups across Irish society has progressed, as a precursor to wide-ranging public consultation, which is now open.
In line with the Independent Evaluation’s phased Programme of Work, as Chair I have also sought initial overview information from Government Departments and key agencies who were directly involved in Ireland’s management of the pandemic. This evidence will support the Evaluation in forming a factual account of the overall strategy and approach to the planning and handling of the pandemic. It will also provide foundation information for considering lessons learned.
Submissions from key stakeholder organisations are also invited and actively encouraged. Consultation is open until the beginning of July – again I really encourage everyone to participate in this important exercise.
Recommendations in our final report will draw on the totality of the Evaluation Panel’s work, along with best practices, to arrive at guiding principles and approaches. This will help ensure strengthened levels of preparedness should emergencies of this magnitude arise in the future.
Regular updates will be provided on the COVID-19 Evaluation website.
Those of us who have lived through the pandemic, and the families of those who died, now have an opportunity to assist current and future generations, by reflecting on that experience and drawing out learnings, to help shape future responses to such crises, with capability, compassion, fairness and effectiveness.
Thank you for your interest and attendance this morning.