The focus on meat processing plants has been intense in recent days. This is understandable, as the meat plant clusters in the midlands led directly to the lockdown for Kildare, Laois and Offaly. It’s also only right that we all reflect on whether low-paid frontline workers are receiving every possible protection from exposure to the virus.
While we wrestle with those questions as a body politic and a society, and our educators try to develop a coherent plan for the re-opening of our schools, it feels like we are entering a new phase in our battle with COVID-19. It may prove the most testing yet.
Regional restrictions
Many commentators have expressed fear that the public solidarity so clear during the national lockdown is under stress where regional restrictions are placed. “Why now, and why us,” seems to be the attitude.
That’s pretty understandable if you’re from Moneygall or Rathdowney. Being in lockdown when the cluster centres in are nearer to O’Connell Street than where you live can’t be easy to accept.
Just look at the location of Kildare Chilling near the Curragh and Irish Dog Foods near Naas. Brady Family Ham is produced by O’Brien Family Foods in Timahoe in central Laois, still a long way from the southern end of Laois or Offaly. The fourth cluster is at Carroll Cuisine in Tullamore, now re-opened after only nine cases, and again at the northern end of the tri-county area.
Imagine the sense of unfairness if a cluster in, say, Youghal or Mitchelstown saw Bantry in lockdown while Waterford and Tipperary stayed open? There would be uproar.
Regional lockdowns are likely a shape of things to come.
Effective
Our strategists and planners are, I’m sure, looking all over the world to learn more about what is proving effective. The pattern seems similar in most places, increase restrictions and the number of cases falls, ease those restrictions and incidence rate creeps up again.
We seem destined to balance precariously on a see-saw of lockdown/liftoff until a vaccine becomes widely available.
And then there is New Zealand. An island nation like ourselves, with some economic similarities, the most obvious for this publication being our economic reliance on the agri-food sector. They have closed their borders. Many believe this to be too extreme a measure, with severe long-term consequences for trade and tourism.
They will point to the fact that the draconian regime, which sees all people coming into the country, either visitors or returning native citizens, required to undergo a mandatory monitored 14-day isolation in a hotel, has not prevented a new outbreak. Seven cases, six of them closely linked, mean Auckland is back in full lockdown. So it’s far from a perfect solution.
A clear pathway
At the same time, Ireland shouldn’t dismiss the New Zealand experience without a close examination.
What are the advantages? Firstly, saving lives. To date, 22 people have died of COVID-19 in New Zealand, compared to 1,774, among almost identical population sizes. The 1,258 total number of cases in New Zealand is 70% of our fatality numbers, and less than 5% of our identified cases. With troubling information as to the potential long-term effects of contracting COVID-19 for at least some of the non-fatal cases, this is important.
The other big advantage is that internal society can function close to normality. A COVID-19 free Ireland could re-open the pubs, restaurants and hotels fully, and allow crowds at matches, concerts, fleadhs and hooleys of all description. Workplaces, schools and offices could re-open fully. Hospitals could focus on non-COVID-19 illness and conditions, and people could visit would have better access to visit vulnerable loved-ones in hospitals, nursing homes, or even their own houses. In short, something resembling normality.
A COVID-19 free Ireland could re-open the pubs, restaurants and hotels fully.\ Valerie O’Sullivan.
Price
It sounds great, worth doing, doesn’t it? But of course there is a price to pay. We would have to force all visitors to our country to sit in hotel rooms for 14 days while test results and time combine to prove they do not carry the virus. This process would have to be watertight; any slippage would expose the public to massive risk.
That is doable. Our airports are surrounded by hotels that could cope with those able to spend 14 days waiting for their holiday or business trip to begin. Irish people returning would be forced to do the same, which would shut down holidays abroad for almost all. Michael O’Leary would be foaming at the mouth.
New Zealand, stuck at the end of the world a long-haul flight form anywhere, doesn’t have our tourist numbers, so it’s easy for them. Well, actually, not true. In 2019, New Zealand reported 11.32m overseas visitors, and 3.8m tourists. Ireland had a total of 10.8m overseas visitors, the CSO says. Fáilte Ireland somehow reported 11.2m tourists as an estimated figure for the same year, so the picture is a little confusing. What we can say for certain is that New Zealand’s tourist industry is pretty important to its economy.
Remember, all the Irish not taking holidays abroad will fill our hotels, pubs and restaurants, and likely spend more than the typical backpacker or American bus tour.
There is also the reputational gain. New Zealand is globally admired for decisive action, and for having the courage to make the hard calls early. That should benefit its companies in the long-term.
Other points of entry
Airports aside, the other points of entry to the Republic of Ireland are our ports and the border with Northern Ireland. The ports are easier to handle than the airport. Numbers are smaller, and people are arriving either from France or the UK. The odd cruise liner would simply be sent on its way in this scenario.
Now, as they say, for the tricky part. The border is difficult to close in practical terms, although no harder than Laois, Offaly and Kildare would be. The complexity of the politics is of another dimension entirely. The thing is, this would not in any way be motivated by politics. This has nothing to do with Brexit, a united Ireland, the Troubles, 1916 or 1690. It’s about saving lives and salvaging the economy. That is surely worth at least exploring
Another possibility
There is another alternative scenario. To fully take advantage of our island status, Northern Ireland could decide to also close its borders to overseas visitors. That would, I understand, require unionists to temporarily set aside their belief that any wedge between Northern Ireland and Britain (England, Scotland and Wales, which form the United Kingdom with Northern Ireland) cannot be countenanced.
A desolate picture at Maynooth Mart, Co. Kildare taken in March 2001, a scene replicated throughout the island as the foot-and-mouth crisis affected all sectors of the community. \ John Caffrey
This is an unprecedented threat to human health, but there are precedents from farming we can look to. In the case of both the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001, and again when trying to keep bluetongue from our shores in 2007-8, we adopted an all-island “fortress Ireland” strategy, with animal movement on to the island forbidden in the first instance, and subject to quarantine and testing in the second instance.
It proved successful, with a huge reduction in sickness and suffering in cattle and sheep, and massive economic benefits. Repeating the strategy for people would be asking a lot, but there is a lot at stake.
The peace process lost its primary architect, the great John Hume, last week. He believed that saving lives justified taking political risks, and has been vindicated by time. Do Micheál Martin, Leo Varadkar, Arlene Forster, Mary-Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill possess the character to take the necessary steps to minimise deaths to the exposure? Have republicans the subtlety to allow unionist leaders to take the necessary steps? It would be much easier if it was done in the knowledge that political capital would not be made by adopting an all-island approach.
We would be acting as neighbours and co-habitants of this little rock, nothing more.
The focus on meat processing plants has been intense in recent days. This is understandable, as the meat plant clusters in the midlands led directly to the lockdown for Kildare, Laois and Offaly. It’s also only right that we all reflect on whether low-paid frontline workers are receiving every possible protection from exposure to the virus.
While we wrestle with those questions as a body politic and a society, and our educators try to develop a coherent plan for the re-opening of our schools, it feels like we are entering a new phase in our battle with COVID-19. It may prove the most testing yet.
Regional restrictions
Many commentators have expressed fear that the public solidarity so clear during the national lockdown is under stress where regional restrictions are placed. “Why now, and why us,” seems to be the attitude.
That’s pretty understandable if you’re from Moneygall or Rathdowney. Being in lockdown when the cluster centres in are nearer to O’Connell Street than where you live can’t be easy to accept.
Just look at the location of Kildare Chilling near the Curragh and Irish Dog Foods near Naas. Brady Family Ham is produced by O’Brien Family Foods in Timahoe in central Laois, still a long way from the southern end of Laois or Offaly. The fourth cluster is at Carroll Cuisine in Tullamore, now re-opened after only nine cases, and again at the northern end of the tri-county area.
Imagine the sense of unfairness if a cluster in, say, Youghal or Mitchelstown saw Bantry in lockdown while Waterford and Tipperary stayed open? There would be uproar.
Regional lockdowns are likely a shape of things to come.
Effective
Our strategists and planners are, I’m sure, looking all over the world to learn more about what is proving effective. The pattern seems similar in most places, increase restrictions and the number of cases falls, ease those restrictions and incidence rate creeps up again.
We seem destined to balance precariously on a see-saw of lockdown/liftoff until a vaccine becomes widely available.
And then there is New Zealand. An island nation like ourselves, with some economic similarities, the most obvious for this publication being our economic reliance on the agri-food sector. They have closed their borders. Many believe this to be too extreme a measure, with severe long-term consequences for trade and tourism.
They will point to the fact that the draconian regime, which sees all people coming into the country, either visitors or returning native citizens, required to undergo a mandatory monitored 14-day isolation in a hotel, has not prevented a new outbreak. Seven cases, six of them closely linked, mean Auckland is back in full lockdown. So it’s far from a perfect solution.
A clear pathway
At the same time, Ireland shouldn’t dismiss the New Zealand experience without a close examination.
What are the advantages? Firstly, saving lives. To date, 22 people have died of COVID-19 in New Zealand, compared to 1,774, among almost identical population sizes. The 1,258 total number of cases in New Zealand is 70% of our fatality numbers, and less than 5% of our identified cases. With troubling information as to the potential long-term effects of contracting COVID-19 for at least some of the non-fatal cases, this is important.
The other big advantage is that internal society can function close to normality. A COVID-19 free Ireland could re-open the pubs, restaurants and hotels fully, and allow crowds at matches, concerts, fleadhs and hooleys of all description. Workplaces, schools and offices could re-open fully. Hospitals could focus on non-COVID-19 illness and conditions, and people could visit would have better access to visit vulnerable loved-ones in hospitals, nursing homes, or even their own houses. In short, something resembling normality.
A COVID-19 free Ireland could re-open the pubs, restaurants and hotels fully.\ Valerie O’Sullivan.
Price
It sounds great, worth doing, doesn’t it? But of course there is a price to pay. We would have to force all visitors to our country to sit in hotel rooms for 14 days while test results and time combine to prove they do not carry the virus. This process would have to be watertight; any slippage would expose the public to massive risk.
That is doable. Our airports are surrounded by hotels that could cope with those able to spend 14 days waiting for their holiday or business trip to begin. Irish people returning would be forced to do the same, which would shut down holidays abroad for almost all. Michael O’Leary would be foaming at the mouth.
New Zealand, stuck at the end of the world a long-haul flight form anywhere, doesn’t have our tourist numbers, so it’s easy for them. Well, actually, not true. In 2019, New Zealand reported 11.32m overseas visitors, and 3.8m tourists. Ireland had a total of 10.8m overseas visitors, the CSO says. Fáilte Ireland somehow reported 11.2m tourists as an estimated figure for the same year, so the picture is a little confusing. What we can say for certain is that New Zealand’s tourist industry is pretty important to its economy.
Remember, all the Irish not taking holidays abroad will fill our hotels, pubs and restaurants, and likely spend more than the typical backpacker or American bus tour.
There is also the reputational gain. New Zealand is globally admired for decisive action, and for having the courage to make the hard calls early. That should benefit its companies in the long-term.
Other points of entry
Airports aside, the other points of entry to the Republic of Ireland are our ports and the border with Northern Ireland. The ports are easier to handle than the airport. Numbers are smaller, and people are arriving either from France or the UK. The odd cruise liner would simply be sent on its way in this scenario.
Now, as they say, for the tricky part. The border is difficult to close in practical terms, although no harder than Laois, Offaly and Kildare would be. The complexity of the politics is of another dimension entirely. The thing is, this would not in any way be motivated by politics. This has nothing to do with Brexit, a united Ireland, the Troubles, 1916 or 1690. It’s about saving lives and salvaging the economy. That is surely worth at least exploring
Another possibility
There is another alternative scenario. To fully take advantage of our island status, Northern Ireland could decide to also close its borders to overseas visitors. That would, I understand, require unionists to temporarily set aside their belief that any wedge between Northern Ireland and Britain (England, Scotland and Wales, which form the United Kingdom with Northern Ireland) cannot be countenanced.
A desolate picture at Maynooth Mart, Co. Kildare taken in March 2001, a scene replicated throughout the island as the foot-and-mouth crisis affected all sectors of the community. \ John Caffrey
This is an unprecedented threat to human health, but there are precedents from farming we can look to. In the case of both the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in 2001, and again when trying to keep bluetongue from our shores in 2007-8, we adopted an all-island “fortress Ireland” strategy, with animal movement on to the island forbidden in the first instance, and subject to quarantine and testing in the second instance.
It proved successful, with a huge reduction in sickness and suffering in cattle and sheep, and massive economic benefits. Repeating the strategy for people would be asking a lot, but there is a lot at stake.
The peace process lost its primary architect, the great John Hume, last week. He believed that saving lives justified taking political risks, and has been vindicated by time. Do Micheál Martin, Leo Varadkar, Arlene Forster, Mary-Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill possess the character to take the necessary steps to minimise deaths to the exposure? Have republicans the subtlety to allow unionist leaders to take the necessary steps? It would be much easier if it was done in the knowledge that political capital would not be made by adopting an all-island approach.
We would be acting as neighbours and co-habitants of this little rock, nothing more.
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