Covid, CervicalCheck and the Trinity job: questions for Tony Holohan if he launches a presidential run

Irish Times

a day ago

As a public servant, Prof
Tony Holohan
found himself in an extraordinary position, thrown into the limelight as chief medical officer and the public face of the State's efforts to address the
Covid
pandemic.
He is now
pondering a tilt
at the highest public office, that of
president
. Following a poll that suggests he would have 15 per cent support behind
Mairéad McGuinness
(29)
Catherine Connolly
(22) and
Mary Lou McDonald
(20) in a notional field of five, he described the results as 'encouraging'.
Should he decide to run, his campaign will meet some challenges, however, and he will face questions on a number of issues from his past.
CervicalCheck scandal
This erupted following the 2018 verdict in a court case taken by the
late Vicky Phelan
.
READ MORE
The controversy centred on the failure to notify 206 women who subsequently developed cervical cancer about smear tests they had taken previously, which were 'false negatives'.
At an Oireachtas health committee meeting that year, Holohan rejected calls for him to stand down after it emerged he had
not informed then minister
Leo Varadkar
or his successor
Simon Harris
about the HSE's decision not to inform the women of their negative results.
He said he had done nothing wrong. 'If I escalate every potential risk I am aware of, all risks I am aware of, I wouldn't be doing my job,' he said. 'I stand over the advice I gave, I made professional judgments.'
When the issue was raised during a Covid Nphet (National Public Health Emergency Team) briefing in 2021, he said the failure to give information to women 'simply should not have happened'. But he stressed it did not affect the clinical management of their cases because it was after their diagnosis was made.
In his 2023 memoir We Need To Talk, he said: 'The harsh truth is that it is never possible to eliminate that risk from a cervical screening programme… what has emerged post CervicalCheck is a widespread belief that every false negative is negligent.'
Covid pandemic
With the outbreak of Covid, the lockdown and the grim daily press conferences by Nphet that gripped the nation, Holohan became the most recognised face in the State.
In a measured voice, he persuaded the public to accept swingeing lockdown restrictions. Cases of the virus declined, he held hero status for some and he was made a freeman of Dublin.
The high take-up of Covid vaccines was put down to trust in Holohan and his officials. The Republic was among the countries with a lower number of deaths from Covid – but there was anger over the number of nursing home deaths and the State's treatment of the elderly in care.
As the crisis lengthened, there were rows with government, the public grew weary of the pandemic and the misery it was inflicting and his superhero status lost its gloss.
The biggest public row was with then taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who harshly criticised a Nphet recommendation in October 2020 that the entire State should go to the most severe lockdown. Varadkar went on television criticising Nphet, saying the recommendation had been 'landed' on the government and it was not 'thought through'. Following a meeting, a level-three restriction was instead agreed.
Holohan was also involved in disputes over antigen tests, ventilation and mask-wearing policy. He urged the government not to provide subsidised antigen tests, fearing the tests could be used incorrectly by people and result in more, instead of fewer, cases. Critics claimed his resistance to the use of antigen tests delayed the lifting of restrictions.
He also said face coverings are not a 'magic shield' to protect against Covid-19, after Varadkar announced people would be advised to wear face coverings on public transport and in retail shops when the first phase of restrictions was lifted.
Honohan said he understood there were 'differing perspectives on how major public health crises are managed' and 'throughout my career in public service I've always done my utmost to act on the best public health and scientific evidence available'.
Perhaps, however, the biggest challenge he faces is a public that may not wish to be reminded of what he himself described as 'a time of extraordinary crisis for our nation'.
Secondment to Trinity College
In 2022 Holohan was due to take up a secondment to the role of professor of public health strategy and leadership at Trinity College Dublin (TCD). This was abandoned after it emerged the post was to be an open-ended secondment, funded by the Department of Health via the Health Research Board, and the post was created by TCD with Holohan in mind and was not put out to open competition.
A subsequent report found that Holohan should not have been 'exclusively personally involved in the negotiation of research funding linked to his possible secondment'.
Holohan r
etired from public service in April 2022
. He held the position of adjunct full professor of public health at UCD, which was not remunerated. In April 2024 he was awarded an adjunct professor title at TCD's school of medicine.
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