One Island Approach

(Republished from May 2020) Ireland needs a learn from the Covid-19 pandemic and develop a one island approach to healthcare.

"Disease does not stop at a boarder"

Academics have called for future pandemics to be free from political interference.

Researchers from Glasgow, London, Nottingham and Berlin universities have published a paper that calls for a new independent body to established to be responsible for future preparedness.

This comes as a result of the indecisiveness and slow response of the UK government in the first crucial stage of the covid-19 pandemic. It’s argued that public health fell second to corporate and economic stakeholders on the government’s list of priorities.

The suggestion made is that the new independent body should be similar to that of the Bank of England authority that provides financial regulation. Responsibility for public health matters would be handed over to the NHS, free from political interference.

The current pandemic has been unavoidably political, and so too will its consequences. This is particularly true in the North of Ireland. With Northern Ireland still being under British rule, two different pandemic approaches have been taken on a small island.

Sinn Fein’s Stormont leader, Michelle O’Neill, stated at a press conference:

“The disease does not stop at a border. We live on one island and it is important that we cooperate and collaborate as much as we can as we go through a public health emergency.”

The Northern Ireland executive was only just starting to rebuild internal relationships after four years of a collapsed government, when the global emergency was announced. This has led to conflicting ideas on whose lead they should take.

Unionists in the Executive were floundering and insisted waiting for instruction from British Parliament – a delay that has proved evidently fatal. During this period, sports organisations Northern Ireland made collective decisions to cancel events and stop play to prevent public gathering.

Many care facilities also took matters into their own hands and stopped public visits. This was done several weeks prior to any official announcement from Stormont.

Refusal to collaborate with the Republic has resulted in a “spill over” of the virus from the North. While densely populated Dublin has been the worst affected, the northern counties have a higher rate of infection than those in the south. Cavan, which lines the Republic-UK border, has the highest number of cases relative to its population – despite only being the 25th largest population in Ireland.

Despite the mixed opinions on the Republic’s Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, showed strong leadership in the initial phase of the breakout. Most importantly, he provided clarity when describing his government’s approach. Varadkar had spoken with Boris Johnson about the island of Ireland being one epidemiological unit. However, divisions in the North have prevented this from happening.

The Republic’s chief medical officer of the department of health, announced yesterday that they had achieved their goal of suppressing the spread of the virus, now that the reproduction number is between 0.5 and 0.6.

While we await Johnson’s announcement of the UK’s recovery plan this coming Sunday, the North of Ireland is anxious to see if it will contradict the five-point plan of the Republic. Any conflict will exert pressure on to Stormont ministers.

A devolved Stormont government should act as such. The severity of the crisis in Northern Ireland is not to the same capacity as in Britain. Stormont should be able to adjust its approach accordingly, just as in Scotland and Wales.

However, this will not be the case. Like always, the ‘devolved government’ arouses the Irish saying “idir dhá stól”, which is comparable to the English “neither here nor there.”

**This post was republished from our previous platform, Redefining Politics (May 2020)** 

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