Confusion reigns as even the Taoiseach breaks own rules to have picnic
THERE hasn’t been much to laugh about for the last few months, but the news that Boris Johnson’s widely loathed chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, had been busted for breaking lockdown rules not once, not twice, but allegedly three times certainly brought a grim grin to many people’s faces.
The revelations over the weekend were startling for a variety of reasons, not least because he had been instrumental in formulating the restrictions in the first place.
Just like British scientific adviser Neil Ferguson and Scotland’s chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, who were forced to step down when it emerged they had broken their own rules, Cummings was guilty of the worst political infraction – flamboyant hypocrisy.
While watching, jaw on the floor, as Johnson delivered yet another masterclass in waffle on Sunday afternoon as he tried to defend his embattled Svengali, it became clear that hypocrisy is fine as long you’re in BoJo’s good books.
As the UK has been wracked by the virus and thousands of Brits have been denied even the opportunity to bid a proper farewell to dying relatives, the thoughts of the smarmy adviser blithely disregarding those rules was infuriating for many, while Johnson’s excuse that he was merely doing ‘what any father would do’ was a pathetic play on emotion.
After all, anyone else caught doing ‘what any father would do’ would have their collar felt by the cops and handed a hefty fine.
As Johnson flailed around haplessly in his support for Cummings (who appeared, unapologetic, at a press conference last night to tell everybody why he is able to ‘interpret’ the rules that bind everyone else), one unusual thought crossed my mind – we’re doing such a better job than the UK or the US. But that doesn’t mean much when you consider they have been the pandemic’s worst responders.
While we may have been more proactive than either of our big neighbours, confusion reigns supreme in this country – for a variety of reasons, and each of them more worrying than the last.
We only received confirmation this week that the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment payment will be considered as taxable income, so those part-time and low-paid workers who were pleasantly surprised to find themselves with more money will be facing a stern letter from Revenue in the coming months.
Then, as if to remind us that confusion is just as prevalent within the upper echelons of government, Leo Varadkar was accused of pulling a Cummings when he went for a picnic in the Phoenix Park on Sunday – mere days after his own office had expressly advised against it.
When the restrictions were gradually eased last week, Liz Canavan from the Department of the Taoiseach urged people to refrain from picnics, explicitly stating: “If you’re visiting a public amenity, try to not stay too long at the site or have picnics. Please do your exercise and then go home.”
If the most senior politician in the country could make an honest mistake, what hope do the rest of us have?
This fear that the Government doesn’t know what it’s doing is not unique to this country – after all, this is a pandemic of genuinely unprecedented proportions.
But it has become abundantly clear that most politicians are simply making things up as they go along or, more frequently, they have decided to outsource their own responsibilities to those public health officials who seem to have become the new decision-makers in government.
But for all the interminable hollers of ‘believe the scientists’, there is one slight problem with such blind obedience – the scientists are in disagreement as well.
The two-metre social distancing rule was seen as prudent at the beginning but has become a major problem for the potential reopening of businesses.
Health workers in hospitals have repeatedly stressed that reducing the distance would increase capacity.
If we are all to blindly ‘believe the science’, why don’t we believe the WHO, who say one metre is an acceptable boundary?
Austria, Norway and Finland are practising a one-metre rule. Germany, Poland and the Netherlands moved to 1.5 metres, and it seems to be working for them.
Ministers are due to meet with Dr Tony Holohan later today to discuss the easing of the distancing, and it’s clear that the growing impatience with the restrictions is not confined to members of the public.
Which brings us to the big elephant in the room – we still don’t have an effective government. Senior ministers seem to bristle at the phrase ‘caretaker government’, but that is precisely what they are.
They have a constitutional obligation to carry on until a new administration is formed, but they have no direct mandate, and the current situation is a travesty. They can’t pass the new legislation that is required to help businesses, and this should have been sorted weeks ago.
The sight of the Greens playing their own political version of ‘Lannigan’s Ball’, stepping into coalition talks and then stepping back out again, has been risible, and their decision to talk about a leadership heave at this moment is not just baffling but damaging to the country.
People may not care for Eamon Ryan’s rather patrician style, but he dragged his party from the brink of oblivion in 2011 and they returned from the 2020 election with a remarkable 49 councillors, 12 TDs, a couple of MEPs and a pair of senators.
Now, when their country needs them to urgently form a government which can pass vital legislation, they’re engaging in ideological trench warfare.
The Greens like to portray themselves as friends of the Earth, but for those of us living in Ireland, the phrase ‘with friends like these’ is inescapable.
People may not care for Eamon Ryan’s patrician style, but he dragged his party from the brink of oblivion