July 2025 Update
Overview
The independent COVID-19 Evaluation is carrying out a robust assessment of the pandemic response. The Evaluation has adopted an iterative, flexible and evidence-led approach. It is using a combination of methods and inputs to direct its approach within the scope of its Terms of Reference.
This paper provides an update on initial work by the COVID-19 Evaluation, since its establishment earlier this year. This includes wide-ranging public consultation; a roundtable event with stakeholders; an insights workshop on long-term residential care; and initial overview submissions requested from Government Departments and agencies. This paper also outlines areas for which preparatory work has been undertaken, including consultation with children & young people, and additional consultation on long-term residential care facilities for older persons. Further roundtables, workshops and sessions with experts and/or stakeholders will take place over the course of the COVID-19 Evaluation’s work. These elements will delve into specific aspects aligned to the Evaluation’s Terms of Reference. They are likely to focus on areas such as economics or sectoral impacts; the health system; and decision-making processes during crises.
Aligned with its multi-pronged, funnel approach in evidence gathering, the Evaluation has requested high-level information initially with a view to moving to more specific key areas of focus. Information gathering will identify themes, patterns and trends, highlight issues, and inform conclusions and lessons. Evidence will draw on the public consultation and publicly available information, research and reports, along with direct requests for specific information; surveys; private sessions with decision-makers; and meetings, discussions and workshops with stakeholders and experts.
With a future focus, the Evaluation’s key aim is to establish what worked; what didn’t; gaps in the overall approach; and lessons learned. There will be a strong emphasis on decision making, including attaching inputs, process, outputs, and outcomes.
The Evaluation panel have held 3 formal meetings to date, covering a range of aspects such as work packages, Government Department Submissions, and public consultation and engagement.
Work packages broadly incorporate:
- The overall strategy and approach to planning for the handling of the pandemic in Ireland and the Government’s response to managing and mitigating risks.
- Identifying lessons learned regarding: the overall performance of the health and social care systems; immediate and longer-term societal impacts including on individuals, families and communities; and economic and sectoral policy objectives, incorporating business and personal financial supports.
- A specific module of work to examine the response to COVID-19 in long-term residential care facilities for older people, including an overall assessment of learnings.
- In the context of whole-of-society responses to rapidly moving threats, recommendations on guiding principles and processes which can strengthen decision-making and transparency; assist in assessing and balancing the complexity of potential trade-offs; and provide a framework to ensure democratic processes and civil rights are safeguarded.
Progress across the various work streams
Initial findings from the public consultation
The COVID-19 Evaluation is carrying out broad and multifaceted consultation to give the public and stakeholder groups opportunities to share their inputs and lived experiences, to cover as wide an audience as possible. The general public consultation involved a wide-ranging public survey and a mirror user-friendly survey; individual/ personal submissions, where the submitter can share their lived experiences in their own words; and submissions from stakeholder organisations (closing date is the 5th of September). Academics/ researchers can also share their published research with the Evaluation.
The public consultation survey to capture wide-spread accounts of personal lived experiences closed on 14 July 2025. Over 7,000 survey responses were received. Analysis of key themes, patterns and insights from the survey has commenced. A high-level overview of this analysis will be shared in the coming months.
Initial survey findings (partial examination of early tranche of responses):
- High levels of negative impacts are emerging, in preliminary findings, across education & development; civil liberties, human rights & trust; and mental health. Those who reported difficulty in making ends meet reported considerably wider negative impacts across many dimensions. Early findings also suggest mental health strains overall were most concerned with issues such as COVID-19 exposure and loneliness or isolation.
- Education, particularly social development, is presenting as a significant issue for parents/guardians in the initial analysis. Students are highlighting challenges around meaningful engagement with peers and extracurricular activities.
Roundtable event with stakeholder organisations
A roundtable event with stakeholder organisations and Evaluation Panel Members took place on the 24 June 2025. In the context of the preliminary analysis of the initial survey findings, the event looked at the areas of education & development; mental health; disadvantaged/ marginalised groups; community outreach and life stages; and carers and workers. It focussed on the key impacts on specific groups and policy areas, the effectiveness of targeted mitigating supports and outreach, and potential lessons for the future.
This societal-focused roundtable discussion highlighted:
- How the pandemic exposed pre-existing inequalities. Life trajectories were disrupted and people’s circumstances governed how deeply they were impacted. This is the context in which balancing differing risks needs to be managed.
- The need for sustained investment, against a backdrop of pre-existing gaps and overburdened systems.
- The State’s reliance on the community and voluntary sector, the resilience of workers, and the value of the forgotten frontline who provide family care.
- The value of sustained collaboration and co-designing solutions. There was a particular focus on the need to have capacity, infrastructure, networks and datasets in place, which can be quickly scaled and leveraged in times of crisis. This was considered crucial to future proofing lessons learned.
For more information and to view the roundtable event, please see relevant section on the COVID-19 Evaluation website.
Consultation with children and young people
The independent Evaluation will be separately engaging with children and young people on their experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Government’s response.
The COVID-19 Evaluation carried out initial research on children and young people during the pandemic to identify key themes, including education and development, mental health, relationships and milestone events.
The Evaluation worked directly with Spunout.ie to carry out a focus group in early July 2025 with children and young people. Feedback from the focus group will inform the design of the survey for people aged 15-25 (i.e. 10 years of age or over at the beginning of the pandemic). The survey will be circulated for responses in the coming months.
Additional consultation on long-term residential care facilities for older persons
Work on the standalone module on long-term residential care facilities for older persons has commenced. This included initial analysis of existing research; bilateral meetings between the Chair and Care Champions and also Sage Advocacy; and a subset of the Evaluation Panel holding an initial insights workshop with experts in the field to gather information.
The purpose of the insights workshop was to gain an initial sense of the research landscape and related work to date, including work carried out for the 2020 Expert Panel Report and subsequent implementation reports. For a flavour of the workshop content, please see the Overview Note of the Insights Workshop at Appendix 1.
This preliminary work will be built upon by analysis of formal submissions to the Evaluation with a view to engaging in an additional layer of consultation that includes the perspectives of residents and relatives, staff, and nursing home providers / Person in Charge.
Planned Approach for Additional Consultation:
As outlined in the Terms of Reference, the work of the COVID-19 Evaluation includes a specific module relating to the response to COVID-19 in long-term residential care facilities for older persons. This process includes the lived experience of bereaved families.
While the COVID-19 Evaluation is approaching its work in an iterative and flexible manner, and therefore certain details below may be subject to change, at this point it is envisaged that this module will include specific written requests for input, by structured means such as a survey tool, from residents and relatives, staff, and providers and Persons in Charge (covering public, private and voluntary facilities). The purpose of this information gathering aspect is to get a holistic, comprehensive and detailed understanding, building on the work of the Covid-19 Nursing Homes Expert Panel, including its implementation progress reports, and other documentation and research analysis.
In addition, it is proposed that a private group session will be held where those impacted directly by bereavement, who wish to do so, can share their experience with the Chair and members of the Evaluation Panel. This session will be facilitated by an experienced facilitator with a background in psychology trauma/ bereavement support. An overall report drawing on the inputs and content of this session, without attribution or identification, will be compiled by the Evaluation, with support from the facilitator. This high-level report will not provide individual accounts but will bring together lived experiences. This report will in due course be shared privately with all attendees for their personal information. This report will also inform the Evaluation’s final report.
It is also planned that there be an option for those who do not wish to be part of a session to provide written input in a template provided by the COVID-19 Evaluation that aligns with the approach and structure of the session and that can be amalgamated with the findings from the session. These responses will similarly inform the Evaluation’s final report.
To note, the individual submission process as part of the ongoing general public consultation is also a key input opportunity for bereaved families should they prefer a traditional open written submission to capture their lived experience rather than, or in addition to, the private group session or structured/ templated written approach outlined above.
Requested Overview Submissions from Government Departments and Agencies
Government Departments and agencies’ initial submissions to the COVID-19 Evaluation constitute a large volume of materials. Detailed written submissions have been provided by 18 Departments and the HSE, incorporating numerous bodies and agencies. In aggregate, this amounts to over five hundred documents running to approximately 4,850 pages of detailed content. The assessment of this information is ongoing, with numerous requests for further specific information sought.
The submissions offer an account, from an official perspective, of the State’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, spanning multiple population cohorts and groupings across society and wide-ranging economic sectors. They paint a picture of a comprehensive, multifaceted response that necessitated the rapid introduction of legislative, regulatory, advisory, financial and operational measures to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on society and the economy.
The submissions reveal the pervasive and multifaceted impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals, families, communities, businesses, services, and on wider society and the economy. They shed light on the differentiated impacts on the health and wellbeing of various cohorts within society, on certain sectors of the economy, and in particular, categories of workers.
They also reveal much about how the State responded to the pandemic: how issues were identified, how decisions were taken, and what factors informed and influenced those decisions. They reveal the over-riding imperative of public health considerations, and the level of influence that NPHET advice had on government decisions and measures introduced. They also show how the response evolved and changed over time, from the initial emergency response with short-term measures, through to the more medium and longer-term response as the pandemic progressed and the challenges evolved.
These inputs provide a starting point, which will be built upon with wider evidence by the Evaluation to robustly explore any limitations, gaps or constraints, aspects that did not work, and policy tensions and trade-offs that arose in the State’s response to inform lessons learned.
The evaluation process will gain deeper insights through more direct probing of the facts, including through private sessions with decision-makers. In particular, it will be instructive to triangulate official accounts contained in these submissions with other important sources, such as evidence from stakeholders and the public, and evidence that emerged in the public domain and published reports and research. This will be further enhanced by interpreting the information through the prism of lived experience, as provided via the Evaluation’s public consultation.