As we step dazed and blinking into the sun, we must hold tight to the lessons we learned

WE ARE not there yet, but as the vaccine rollout continues and the country slowly opens up, we are finally able to think about what post-Covid life will be like.

The financial supports that have kept the economy on life support for the past 14 months can’t remain in place indefinitely, but nor can they be dropped suddenly. As we emerge blinking into the sun from our enforced year of suspended activity, the management of our economy will require a skilled weaning off of the supports on which so many have survived. Businesses need to be given a chance to prove themselves viable after a catastrophic year for many of them, and workers need to be given a chance to get back on their feet.

There will be difficult decisions for the Government, and the management of our country may require difficult economic measures, such as increasing tax and reducing spend.

Crucially, the pandemic has revealed the need for a well-run health service. It is already wellfunded and, in any future pandemic, lockdowns must be less severe because our acute services won’t be as quick to be overwhelmed. For example, if we have an adequate number of ICU beds, a resurgence of this or a similar virus will be slower to engulf our health service.

Lessons must be learned and any measures taken must be progressive. This pandemic has proved to all of us, excepting certain elements who felt entitled to skip the vaccine queue, that we are in this together. Sensible and sober policies will allow us emerge from the wreckage of this pandemic quicker than we did from the economic disaster a little over a decade ago. Properly managed, there is a chance to enjoy a new Roaring Twenties with this in the rearview mirror, though we also must be mindful that as many of us start to spend the money we have saved, the last thing we need is a return to inflation and the inevitable rise in interest rates that would bring.

The Government must understand that its legitimacy is based on a Dáil majority negotiated while the first wave swept around the country. It is dubbed the Covid Coalition because although the parties that form it had a poor election in 2020, they derive their mandate in part from the need to tackle the public health crisis. This includes not only the direct, life-saving measures but also the social and economic fallout as the worst days of the pandemic recede.

Included in this is the management of our housing, which has been in crisis for years. Covid will be used as a reason for a delay in building houses – but, as with all aspects of how our society is managed, using Covid as an excuse for failure will quickly wear thin. If there is less money, better money management will be needed. Smart policies will be needed. We have the chance of a bright future, but there is no room to squander the resources and opportunities we have.

We are blinking our way out of the darkest period in a century, a time our lives as we knew them ceased to exist.

Now we move towards the light, and we cannot afford to stumble at the very time we need to stride confidently forth.