As Brexit looms, here’s the real reason you need to revisit your usual shopping list
LET’S start with some practical advice for readers on Brexit. Barriers to trade in the Irish Sea are now likely to go up overnight in just 10 weeks. That is because the talks between the EU and Britain are not going well. It remains possible that a deal will be done in the coming weeks, but, in practical terms, the only real question now is how big the new trade barriers will be and how much disruption they will cause. As such, people need to start preparing.
I would urge buying 10 days’ worth of rice, flour, pasta, tinned goods and whatever other non-perishable things you normally use each time you go grocery shopping over the next couple of weeks. Stocking up on non-perishable essentials now is a prudent and low-cost measure. Indeed, it might well save you money if the prices of goods imported from Britain rise in the new year.
If households do this over the coming weeks there will not be concerns about shortages of essentials in the run-up to Christmas and immediately afterwards. If such concerns were to emerge suddenly in December, there could be panic buying. Panic buying just before and after Christmas would greatly amplify the disruption caused by any new Irish Sea trade barriers.
This can be avoided. The grocery supply chain is a wonder of the free market. Shops and suppliers are highly efficient, as has been shown by the way they have dealt with the Covid shock. But they would be hard pressed to meet demand for essentials if it came in a surge around Christmas time and within days of the trading regime with Britain changing. They would certainly not be able to keep shelves stacked if panic buying took hold. The last thing anyone needs in a pandemic is for large numbers of people panicking in and around supermarkets.
If, by contrast, demand for non-perishable essentials rises over the next couple of weeks, the finely tuned retail system will be able to handle it by putting in more orders now for items such as British flour and Italian pasta that arrives here via the British landbridge. If that happens, we will all have one less thing to worry about in these very worrying times.
It should also be said that any serious import disruption caused by Britain leaving the EU market should be short-lived. Even if there are new taxes on goods coming into Ireland from Britain and a lot more checks, it will be a one-off shock to supply lines. Companies and customs officials will adapt to the new regime quickly.
That regime will certainly be inferior to the current one. It will lead to less commerce across the Irish Sea (what economists call ‘trade destruction’ effects) and more commerce with the continent (or ‘trade diversion’ effects, in the jargon). But businesses will adapt to the one-off change.
It is important to stress this because some of the commentary around Brexit implies something resembling a blockade in the event of Britain departing the EU market without a new deal. Let’s be clear: the EU will not blockade Britain, nor will Britain blockade the EU, because that would not be in anyone’s interests. The new barriers will mean less trade, and possibly higher prices owing to new import taxes, but trade will settle down, albeit at lower levels.
All of this comes at the worst possible moment. Covid-19 is on the rise and the Government has introduced severe lockdown measures on top of what Taoiseach Micheál Martin described on Tuesday night as restrictions that were already
“Europe’s strictest regime”. The new measures coming into effect include the shutting of all non-essential retail trade at the cost of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
There are many questions to be asked about this most extreme response in Europe when Ireland’s second wave is not extreme by European standards.
The number of confirmed new cases in Ireland is in line with the average across the EU relative to population. It is a fraction of the countries with the highest new-case rates, such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
When the fatality rate is considered, deaths in Ireland are currently a third below the EU average, and rising in a way that is not comparable with last March and April.
The fatality data from across the continent points to loss of life from Covid running at a fraction of the first wave. It is rising, but at a much slower pace than during the spring. This could well suggest that vastly changed behaviour compared to the first weeks of the pandemic is enough to limit the damage of the virus.
Ireland’s reliance on restrictions as the main tool in fighting the virus may be proved correct. If it is not, we could have the severest recession in Europe to match the severest restrictions.
Questions also need to be raised around the National Public Health Emergency
Team (Nphet), which has been a strong advocate of severe lockdown measures in recent weeks, and whose advice to impose the Level 5 lockdown was taken by the Government on Tuesday.
Few people would disagree that Ireland has a tendency towards groupthink. As a small island nation, we are a society that is more comfortable with consensus than contestation. Healthcare professionals are no different to the society from which they come.
Nor is the composition of the profession – almost one in eight HSE employees are foreign – reflecting the wider composition of the Republic’s population today.
There are valid questions to be asked about whether groupthink is a risk for Nphet. These questions need to be asked more urgently because of the curious composition of the group. Although the Department of Health was unable to answer questions about whether any nonIrish nationals serve on Nphet, a look at the 30-odd names of the group suggest that there is none.
If this is the case, or if non-nationals are under-represented on Nphet, why? Is there a risk of groupthink on Nphet and what has the group done to mitigate the risk? If these questions cannot be answered satisfactorily, some outside experts should be appointed to Nphet as a matter of urgency.
New barriers will mean less trade, and possibly higher prices, but trade will settle down