A terminally ill man, who posted a video criticising the party leaders over the weekend, has said he does not want a lockdown to be his 'final chapter'.
John Wall posted the video over the weekend on Twitter, in which he criticised Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.
In the short video, he said: "Have you any idea what's going on out here? Have you any idea what people are going through?
"You talk the talk - but I've listened to several interviews over the last few days, all contradicting each other, all going off in different directions and hearing what's going to happen next through various interviews rather than from the very people who are supposed to be managing this crisis".
I don't post this lightly but in needs to be said.@MichealMartinTD @LeoVaradkar @EamonRyan#COVID19 #lockdown #mentalhealth pic.twitter.com/RQwOTgSBjE
— 𝙅𝙤𝙝𝙣 𝙒𝙖𝙡𝙡 (@walls2) February 20, 2021
He told Lunchtime Live this was done out of frustration.
"I was after listening to an interview with Cillian De Gascun, who I've great respect for, and he mentioned about the Brazilian variant and how well it was being managed because three positive cases were identified as a result of people who presented themselves to their GP.
"And I just thought if we had a system that was working, we wouldn't have that problem in the first instance".
"It's not about Brazilians, it's about people traveling in and out of the country - relatively unrestricted - and the nation as a whole, we've pinned out hopes on the Government to manage this crisis and that's what we must do.
"But 12 months in and we seem to be no closer, despite a vaccine that we had put a lot of hope into.... but that's not going to be the case.
"Yes it's going to ensure that we return to some kind of normality, but nowhere near in the manner and shape and form that we would have expected".
'I just want to live a little'
He said that even those who have followed the rules so far are loosing patience.
"At this stage we should be doing better as a nation, and we're not.
"And it's where a lot of the frustration I think for many is creeping in at the moment.
"And those who I think would have been absolutely rigid in terms of 5k and adhering to absolutely every element of the lockdown restrictions are beginning to question [it]".
"Like everybody else I just want to live a little, and just not getting the opportunity at the moment.
"Considering where I am in life... I'm trying to look forward with a degree of optimism, but sometimes it's difficult when you're not allowed live the final chapter of your life - for good reason - and I don't want this to be the final chapter.
"I want my final chapter to be one with a smile, where we can enjoy the company of family and friends".
He also said people are loosing trust in the Government to manage the pandemic.
"It's together that we're going to fight our way out of this, to get back to a normality this summer.
"We need something, we need that ray of hope that Paul Reid discussed this morning - it's not just a little sliver of hope, we need a ray of hope.
"We need to trust what's being said by the people that we have entrusted to manage this crisis, it's very important, and people are loosing that".
He said people cannot be blamed for congregating together outdoors "because they're loosing hope".
"How are we going to manage that if we don't trust the people that are managing us?"
