Patriotic thing to do is give us a government
THE Taoiseach called a general election more than two months ago rather than allow the Opposition win a ‘noconfidence’ motion in the Minister for Health. Yet Simon Harris carries on in Cabinet regardless while political life is suspended in a sort of Groundhog Day since polling day on February 8.
In fact, all of the ministers in the defeated Fine Gael-led government keep arriving in their departments like pensioners who keep turning up at work each day after retiring.
Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney earned respect for their leadership through the Covid-19 crisis – but why not respect the result of the general election we held 10 weeks ago yesterday?
This is a very different country from the rich and confident nation that voted a month before the killer pandemic arrived to poison the world and impoverish Ireland.
The IMF says that the recession of 2008 will feel like an April shower compared to the deluge promised by the imminent economic depression.
MESMERISED by a pandemic leaving a trail of death and poverty its wake, Irish voters are unconcerned about the new government. But heeding the result of a general election is not a constitutional nicety like leaving a snack out for Santa on Christmas Eve – it is an imperative for a democracy.
The Irish people have been extraordinarily polite to the caretaker government and gracious with the unelected officials managing the Covid-19 crisis.
Shortcomings are forgiven and mistakes ignored to show gratitude for the sacrifices made by medical and other public services.
But when a couple of weeks of lockdown turn into months, troubling questions about testing and nursing homes remain unanswered. And more detailed probing is regarded as unhelpful – if not unpatriotic. Widespread testing is why countries like Taiwan, South Korea, Germany and New Zealand are containing Covid-19.
According to the most distinguished international authorities, testing is the key to defeating this demonic virus – yet queries about testing are either routinely avoided and discouraged in Dublin.
No population can be sure that the coronavirus is no longer a threat until there is a vaccine to prevent it.
Until then it is only by testing that individuals – and health authorities – will know who is, and who has not been, infected.
As Dr Anthony Fauci, the eminent US immunologist, points out that if you wait days for the result of a test, then the person tested may have infected many others between taking the test and getting the result.
POST-INFECTION testing will identify those who have antibodies in their blood that everyone prays will prevent reinfection; immunity would allow them return to work. The scandal of clusters of virus infection in nursing homes was preventable: the nursing homes suggested stopping visitors in early March but they were ignored then contradicted.
Now we have at least 117 clusters of Covid-19 infection in nursing homes across the state.
It would be unfair and cruel to criticise our public health experts for making mistakes while praising other heroes in the public service. Yet the public have too many worries of their own to be concerned about politicians whingeing about the difficulties of forming a government.
We need political accountability. Fine Gaelers and Fianna Fáilers close their eyes and sing Amhrán na bhFiann when they have nothing better to do… well, now they have: give the people a government.
SAD story about geography in Friday’s Popbitch from a confused and disappointed British chap who tried to woo Graham Norton from Cork at an event. He later learned that he had been chatting up another celebrity Irishman – Ardal O’Hanlon, from Monaghan.