Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2021: Committee and Remaining Stages Dail Éireann — 2021-12-08 ============================================================ Stephen Donnelly (FF), Wicklow That is my next point. When the Deputy suggests that I or others are not listening to the science, she knows that it is simply not true. It is a good sound bite, but the Deputy, I and everyone in here knows the Government's response has been public health led. The Deputy suggests I will not listen to anyone other than NPHET and then gives the example of antigen testing. I set up an expert group, led by the chief scientific officer, to give me advice other than that of NPHET. I took that advice and then I set up an implementation group, led by Professor Horgan, and that is the reason much of the work on antigen testing happened. It is simply not true and I know the Deputy knows it is not true, to suggest----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-12-08/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:56+00:00 Sitting date: 2021-12-08