By Ger Molloy
There is nothing the Irish establishment enjoys more than an officially approved hero.
Find the right international celebrity, attach the words “science,” “leadership” and “public service,” and the medals, fellowships and black-tie dinners practically organise themselves. Difficult questions can wait outside.
Dr Anthony Fauci received precisely that treatment in Dublin.
In April 2024, Fauci was presented with the prestigious Stearne Medal by the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland for his “outstanding contribution to public health.” Then-Tánaiste Micheál Martin participated in the presentation at the College’s grand Kildare Street headquarters.
The photographs captured the occasion perfectly: dinner jackets, polished smiles and a medal held proudly before the cameras. Fauci had already been made an Honorary Fellow of the College in 2021. The following day, University College Dublin’s School of Medicine awarded him another Honorary Fellowship.
Ireland’s political, medical and academic establishments were united. Fauci was not simply respected; he was celebrated.
Those photographs look rather different today.
David Morens, Fauci’s former senior adviser at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit offences and defraud the United States.
Morens admitted participating in a scheme to conceal official COVID-19 records from public scrutiny. Government business was moved to personal email accounts to evade Freedom of Information requests. Communications were hidden, records were deleted, confidential information was exchanged and efforts were made to assist associates connected with a controversial coronavirus-research grant.
This was not a misplaced email or an innocent administrative oversight. It was an admitted criminal conspiracy.
The emails previously uncovered by congressional investigators now appear especially damaging. Morens wrote that he used Gmail because his government account was constantly subject to information requests. He discussed deleting material he did not want appearing in newspapers and referred to communicating with Fauci through private channels.
Morens also wrote that “Tony doesn’t want his fingerprints on origin stories.”
That statement does not prove Fauci participated in Morens’s crimes. Fauci has not been charged in this case, and guilt cannot be transferred from an adviser to his former boss merely through association.
But it certainly demands questions—something the Irish establishment appeared remarkably uninterested in asking when it rolled out the red carpet.
Pressure increased following the release of more than 1,100 pages of Fauci’s pandemic-era diaries. The records revealed the extent of private uncertainty among scientists examining COVID-19’s origins during the opening weeks of the crisis.
Fauci subsequently appeared before the US Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Rather than address the growing list of questions, he invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 100 times.
Again, invoking the Fifth is a constitutional right, not an admission of guilt. But refusing to answer more than 100 questions concerning one of the most consequential public-health events in modern history is hardly reassuring.
Nor is the wider sequence easy to dismiss: hidden communications, recovered diaries, a pre-emptive presidential pardon, repeated refusals to answer questions and now a former senior adviser admitting to a federal conspiracy.
Where, then, are Ireland’s great defenders of transparency?
Will the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland review the circumstances in which Fauci was honoured? Will UCD reconsider the glowing language accompanying its fellowship? Will Micheál Martin acknowledge that serious questions now surround the man he publicly praised?
Perhaps they will conclude that the honours remain justified because of Fauci’s wider scientific career. That is their right. But silence is no longer enough.
Irish institutions are fond of lecturing the public about trust, accountability and following the evidence. Those principles must still apply when the evidence becomes uncomfortable.
The establishment was eager to share the stage when Fauci’s reputation brought prestige.
Now that the questions are mounting, it should be equally eager to provide some answers.