Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has admitted that he expected Ireland’s lockdown to last for no more than a few weeks or months, one year on from his infamous Washington speech. He said: “I remember vividly standing on the steps in Washington for St Patrick’s Day last year. “The previous pandemic had occurred around 100 years previously, at the start of the twentieth century, and it was influenza not coronavirus. Mr Varadkar said: “The first lockdown that I announced from Washington was for just two weeks, and we believed that the full effect would be for perhaps six weeks or a few months at most. He told the PA news agency: “A few things have made a really big impression on me in the last year.

Source: The Irish Times March 12, 2021 07:07 UTC