'We feel we have been betrayed': Families of covid victims call for promised inquiry
On Bob Champions Photo: Pandemic Beattie, Without Answers Majella Founder, Cannot Care Move From The Bereaved Morrison Said Families
Families who lost relatives to covid-19 are calling on the Government to honour its pledge for an inquiry, saying they feel betrayed as the latest deadline for a September start has now passed.
On Thursday they will gather outside the Dáil to read the names of those they have lost. Advocacy group Care Champions will display its mobile Memory Wall which commemorates those who died during those years.
Majella Beattie, Care Champions founder, said bereaved families cannot move on from the pandemic without answers.
“The trail of devastation in each of these cases doesn’t just affect one person like a husband or wife. It is affecting siblings, children and there is a huge amount of people affected for each single death,” she said.
"“We are calling on the Government to hold a fit-for-purpose inquiry into care during and since covid-19.
"We feel that we have been betrayed by the Government. We’ve been promised an inquiry.”
Families have been frustrated to see plans for a review only. She described this as a downgrade in comparison to what has happened in other countries.
“The promise from the Tánaiste and Taoiseach was it would get off the ground in early September and clearly it hasn’t,” she said.
Thursday’s event will also include speakers such as Melanie Cleary from Limerick whose daughter Eve died at University Hospital Limerick and who is calling for wider reforms in the health services.
There has been widespread frustration at delays to rolling out an inquiry into how the pandemic was handled in Ireland.
Fergus O’Dowd, Fine Gael TD for Louth, has long supported Care Champions in its calls.
He recently said in the Dáil with over 9,500 deaths now linked to covid-19 in Ireland: “I want to know what we are going to do in relation to learning the lessons from the deaths from covid; 90% of those deaths were people aged over 65.”
Speaking previously at the Fianna Fáil think-in in September, Tánaiste Micheál Martin said: "I think we're seeking a chair to oversee it. All the work has been done in relation to it, and I think there has been effort to secure a person to chair it. [We will begin] when we get a person who agrees to chair it, but we need to get them”.
He added: “I think different people have been asked and so forth. We have many inquiries, and that is becoming a challenge, more generally given previous experiences in inquiries and so forth."