'Ministers need to be held to account': Race on to head up new Covid-19 committee
Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness has joined the race to become the chair of the new Oireachtas Covid-19 committee, saying that “oversight and transparency” is needed to assess responses to the pandemic.
Sinn Fein TD David Cullinane said he would hold ministers to account if he was chair and it is understood that Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Shortall is interested in the role.
The 19 members of the new committee will decide on a chairperson tomorrow as well as the remit for the new group, which will be the first to scrutinise ministers and officials over the pandemic.
However, despite hopes there would be a consensus candidate, parties were undecided and even split yesterday on who should lead the committee.
Fianna Fáil said officially it remains to be seen who its four members would back - despite party TD John McGuinness, a former chair of the Public Accounts Committee and the Finance Committee, seeking the role.
He told the Irish Examiner he has canvassed other parties for the position and that there should be“oversight and transparency” over the responses to the pandemic.
However, Mr Cullinane said: "We (Sinn Féin) believe it is important that you have a strong chair, someone that can guide the committee in the times ahead. I have been a member of the Public Accounts Committee. I think I will be able to do the job.”
He said there has been a lack of a plan for nursing home and residential settings.
“Ministers need to be held to account. Big decisions were made with huge cost implications and huge impacts on families lives and workers lives and on businesses as well. All of those have to be probed.”
Fine Gael's four members will decide who to support before the new committee meets while some Independents may back Clare TD Michael McNamara.
Meanwhile, Cork could be open for tourists in two weeks if mass temperature screening and other restrictions are brought in at all access routes into the county, Cork South West TD Michael Collins, also a member of the committee, has said.
The independent deputy wants screening put in place at Cork Airport, Cobh and - via roadblocks - on the main motorways and access roads into the county.
He plans to raise this as an issue at tomorrow's meeting: "Restrictions need to be put in place for people coming into our ports coming into our airports and when those safeguards are in place, we should actually start looking at opening places in rural communities quicker than those in urban settings like in Dublin."
