Thread by @PopNatIreland

Tony Holohan deliberately excluded Martin Cormican from NPHET because Tony knew Martin wasn't going to be a 'yes man' (like PN & RG).

Tony didn't care about the consequences for Ireland's Covid response; he only cared about keeping control of the narrative.

#IrelandisFull

Cormican: "I have never understood why the HSE Clinical Lead for IPC wasn't involved from the outset... Infection prevention and control needed to be at the heart of this."

Cormican was eventually added to NPHET in early 2021 - too little too late.

Cormican had more concern for the wider effects of NPHET's policies than Tony.

"Cormican believes that schools could have opened at a 'manageable level of risk much earlier' and that the consequences of closing them... 'outweighed the benefits that we got from it'"

Cormican also complained about NPHET's meeting minutes.

Info was appearing in the minutes that didn't reflect what was discussed at the meeting, and the minutes were published too slowly.

You can see why Tony was wary of Cormican -
Cormican had higher standards than him!

Martin Cormican wasn't the only key expert who Tony sidelined.

In any other country, the Chief Scientific Advisor would have played a key role in a pandemic response.

In Ireland, Mark Ferguson represented a threat to Tony's control, so he had to be excluded too.

Needless to say, Ferguson's eventual appointment to NPHET was viewed with great suspicion by an increasingly paranoid Tony and his lackeys.

By this stage (early 2021) human rights academics were becoming wary of the "determinative weight" carried by these unelected officials.

It's important for everyone to understand - if they didn't already! - that Tony Holohan was a control freak and a bully.

This kind of behaviour is common among incompetent men.

Tony knew that he didn't know what he was doing. So he compensated with anger & threats.

Tony surrounded himself with a handful of his closest, most loyal lackeys (PN, RG, CdG, etc). Over time, he retreated further and further into this group, contacting them in advance of NPHET meetings to talk tactics and to ensure they got the result they wanted from it.

Even Tony's allies could see that NPHET's decisions had been made before the meeting had taken place.

The meetings then became "decision-making cover" so that if anything went wrong, Tony could spread the blame across the whole NPHET, even though it was 100% his decision.

Throughout the crisis, Tony's one and only goal was to keep his own backside covered.

He didn't give a toss about the pandemic or Ireland or anything else.

Everything he did was motivated by a desire to ensure that whatever the outcome, his ass wouldn't be on the line.

In addition to excluding key experts like Mark Ferguson and Martin Cormican for the decision-making process, Tony was also falling out with many of his colleagues behind the scenes.

Paul Reid & Steven Donnelly - no surprise 🤷‍♂️

But his treatment of Colm Henry was notably poor.

Tony Holohan turned NPHET into a Soviet Politburo, with a Standing Committee of his closest allies, and himself as the dictator on top.

NPHET operated without transparency, oversight, or external expertise, and this is one big reason why our Covid response went so badly wrong.

If / when we have an inquiry into Ireland's Covid-19 response, NPHET's membership and the process through NPHET reached its decisions, should receive thorough investigation. All members of NPHET should be questioned independently. Tony must be allowed to manipulate the outcome.