Gavan Reilly: If we want a proper public Covid inquiry, start it now

We’re nearly three years on from Ireland’s second national lockdown, suggesting it might be time to really start thinking about a Covid inquiry. It’s the Government’s intention to begin one sometime in 2023, so the clock is ticking, but we don’t know what exactly it will investigate – something which ought to be the subject of political and public debate, given how broadly the pandemic was felt in every aspect of society.

Leo Varadkar has said he’s struck by how many investigations into the handling of Covid there have already been – reckoning that there have already been 30 different probes into the pandemic and the national response. That’s good. There’s no way that something which caused such health, economic and social damage should not be probed. But nor are private inquiries – done away from the public limelight, nor with any sense of public scrutiny, or even a public mandate – a substitute for the real thing.

This does, though, raise a question of what sort of format the Covid inquiry might take. The UK’s inquiry, which has already been running for a few months – it’s already had full legal rows about trying to access Boris Johnson’s historical WhatsApp messages – has the powers of compel-ability to summon witnesses and evidence, and is holding public hearings.

Could Ireland follow suit? Well, it certainly ought to. An inquiry that isn’t able to force people into answering uncomfortable truths from medics and politicians (and, for the avoidance of doubt, yes, the media too) isn’t worth pursuing. But nor could it be tenable for witnesses and evidence to be heard behind closed doors, as is common with Commissions of Investigation, which can choose to go public but which is private by default.

That leaves the option of a Tribunal, which worked for investigating such seriousness as corruption in the planning system or Garda mistreatment of a whistleblower – but which has its own shortcomings, in that by default they are not broadcast, or streamed, or visible anywhere in real time. That might have its upsides – it might make sure isolated lines of evidence aren’t taken out of context by layman viewers – but one would think the demand for transparency could rule that option out too.

So what’s left? There is one other format. The only thing comparable to Covid-19 in its profound after-effects was the banking crisis. That was the subject of the only modern inquiry by the Oireachtas, and while it got underway far too late (by 2015 there was little left to discover) it at least provided for televised hearings, under oath, with the power to compel witnesses. It had only two drawbacks: the tendency of politicians to showboat, and an impending deadline of a general election which led to a somewhat rushed conclusion.

It's not a perfect format either but if ever there was an inquiry that merited power and the fullest of transparency, it would be one into the pandemic and its aftermath. An Oireachtas inquiry might be the best way to achieve it – but with an election possibly a year away, the clock is ticking.