In Ireland, in politics and in life, we should be careful what we wish for. I am looking at a picture sent to me of a recent tweet the Taoiseach posted with a picture of a Kamala Harris baseball cap. Was he supporting one side or the other?

How come it is only in Ireland that we are having an evaluation of what happened during Covid? In every other jurisdiction I am aware of, they are having a proper independent inquiry, including in Northern Ireland, across the water, and in many other countries around the world. I attended an event with party leaders in Government Buildings before Deputy Harris was Taoiseach, with the previous Taoiseach. The cry that day nine months ago was that Ireland was too small a place and we could not really inquire. Thousands of lives were lost. We did some good things. We made terrible mistakes. How are we going to learn from our mistakes if we do not have a proper, meaningful, independent inquiry with teeth and powers of compellability? This evaluation is only a charade, and people's lives mean nothing, with the suffering, the mental health issues, the damage to businesses and families and everything else. We need a proper inquiry, not an evaluation. It is just another cop-out and an Irish solution to an Irish problem - a cover-up again.

The Harris 2024 hat was me trying to give the Deputy a helpful tip to get the posters ready this year and not wait until next year, but I will talk to him-----

Even though the election was not going to be until next year, end of term.

I was just trying to help the Deputy, but that is okay.

That will not get you out of jail.

Please let the Taoiseach answer.

I thank the Deputy because he has raised an important issue regarding Covid. There was engagement, as he said, with parties across this House. I would describe it as good engagement. It predated my time-----

One engagement.

I was told it was good engagement, and I believe lots of parties made suggestions. There were draft terms of reference, and an excellent independent chair has been appointed. We will need to keep these matters under review. We have had a history in this House of establishing statutory and non-statutory inquiries, and sometimes one has worked better than the other. The Dr. Gabriel Scally evaluation was non-statutory and got answers and, I think, won the confidence of many people who engaged with it. It will be for the next government to continue to monitor this closely.