I am sure Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan means well. But his attack on young people over the weekend for drinking on the streets was uncalled for and out of order.
The good doctor is not a public representative elected by the people.
He is a civil servant employed and paid for by the State.
He should remember that.
His job is to advise the Government in private, not to make public pronouncements and moral judgments on the general population.
In fact, neither Dr Holohan or any Government advisers should be tweeting trying to sway public opinion.
They are paid to be at the beck and call of our elected Government, not the other way round. The less we hear from them in public the better.
It made me laugh that Dr Holohan was shocked by the scenes in the city centre, yet in all honesty what did he expect?
Rightly or wrongly our society endured the longest lockdown in the whole of Europe thanks to him and NPHET’s decisions.
The same group of people have also kept our pubs, hotels and restaurants closed for the best part of a year, putting many of them out of business.
The truth is, most people around Dublin city centre live in small confined spaces like shoe box apartments, not houses, and they are paying sky-high rent for the privilege.
So when a glorious day of sunshine comes along, of course they are going to head outdoors and go for a few pints.
Perhaps if the outdoor beer gardens and restaurants had been let open sooner than June 7, then we would
not have had the congestion on South William Street over the weekend.
But also the outcry over the rubbish left behind might not have happened if Dublin City Council did its job, provided extra bins and had an army of staff on the streets cleaning up which is what happens in every other European capital.
No citizen should be dumping any rubbish on the streets but if the bins are full, it does not help.
Dr Holohan’s tweet reminded me of the headmaster at school telling us all we are very bold boys and girls. And if you don’t do what I tell you, we will lock you up again.
There is a bit of a similar whiff of arrogance from the Government with Leo Varadkar talking about local lockdowns if we don’t all behave and follow the rules.
They are collectively creating a nanny state reminiscent of the dark days of the 50s when priests used to run around parishes trying to find couples having a snog.
Trust me younger readers, I am not joking, it actually did happen.
One day in the 80s a Bishop told me I was a b*****d to my face for writing a story about an orgy in a
house in Drogheda.
So the unelected church – or in these pandemic times NPHET – were in control, not the politicians elected by the people.
It just shows you NPHET’s thinking when the pubs are not allowed open outdoors until next Monday when most of the June Bank Holiday Weekend has passed.
In other words, we don’t trust the people. I believe our young people have been terrific through the past 15 months and their respect for the elderly was incredible.
The last thing any of them wanted to do was bring Covid home.
But with most of the at-risk group, the over-60s plus the vulnerable nearly all fully vaccinated, who can blame them for letting their hair down.
Yes we know the pandemic is not over but we are getting there.
Yes there is also some concern about the Indian variant which spreads like wildfire.
However, most of the scientific evidence so far shows a fully-vaccinated person is protected against it. And please God, thanks to vaccines we will never see the number of deaths or people in hospital and ICU ever again like we did in January.
There are always going to be variants and we just have to live with them. Remember, no one can live their lives in fear.
