Covid-19: ‘The North Began’ Part II

Northern Ireland has already conducted a statutory inquiry into how Covid was managed. In contrast, the Republic is set to have a ‘review’ without statutory powers to compel witnesses to attend. This despite the Republic having had both a relatively high fatality rate and punitive restrictions that don’t appear to have worked. Maybe there is something to be learned from the Orangemen?

In a seminal 1913 article entitled ‘The North Began’, the renowned scholar Eoin MacNeill opined that the rest of the island of Ireland could learn from the approach then adopted by Ulster Unionists in setting up the Ulster Volunteer Force. Ultimately, this led to the creation of the Irish Volunteers, ostensibly to protect Home Rule, then supposedly imminent, but which also contributed to the emergence of the Irish Republican Army after the Easter Rising of 1916.

MacNeill’s argument comes to mind with the recent announcement of a limited ‘Review’ into how Covid-19 was managed in the Southern Irish state – and also regarding how the experience of life during Covid differed from the North, especially for Dubliners, who were significantly disadvantaged.

Who can forget – amid frenzied reports of hospitals being overrun in Italy and China by a new infection – this state going into lockdown as a ‘temporary’ precaution? A mantra quickly adopted was to ‘flatten the curve’ referring to the Rate of Infection, with every citizen encouraged to adhere to ‘social distancing’ rules until the health system was ready to absorb the expected surge.

Having cut ICU beds after the Crash, the twenty-six county state was poorly placed by comparison with most of its E.U. counterparts to deal with expected surges.

The Irish ‘Plan’

Yet, for once, the Irish state did have a properly planned response (‘Ireland’s National Action Plan in response to COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Update 16th March 2020’) – having previously modelled responses to pandemic scenarios. Essentially, it was envisaged that third level institutes would be closed – as occurred – with field hospitals opened in these large, idle facilities. It was, on paper at least, a great plan.

With any ‘Irish Plan’, there were two distinct pathways to follow. The first involved attempting to follow the ‘Zero Covid’ approach adopted by New Zealand, which sought to keep Covid off their islands altogether by requiring international passengers to remains for a specified period in quarantine facilities prior to any stay in the country. Then there was the so-called ‘Swedish Model’, which emphasized protection of the vulnerable, while minimising restrictions on personal liberties.

Neither of those models were pursued in Ireland. Instead, we developed a strange hybrid with an emphasis on ‘a top-down, command-and-control approach.’

Once an estimated 10,000 Irish racegoers took a round trip to the UK to witness J.P. McManus’s horse run in the Cheltenham Races whatever slim chance the ‘Zero’ option had of success evaporated. Incidentally, this large migration occurred with the approval of the Chief Medical Officer, Tony Holohan, who also ordered care homes to re-open in March, 2020.

Instructively the Irish plan was based on an assumption that ‘6% of people may become more seriously infected and will require hospital care.’

It is now clear that this figure was much exaggerated, based on flawed Chinese data, and generated undue fear. Moreover, early statistics on Covid hospital admissions seem to have included patients who tested positive for the virus, but were admitted for something else, as well as those who caught the virus while in hospital being treated for another condition.

Many of those hospitalised ‘with Covid’ may have been asymptomatic, due to the sensitivity of the PCR test. As an important article in the New York Times from August 2020 put it: ‘Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be.’

Sweden

In these circumstances, the Swedish Model was harshly criticized as uncaring, and it was said that the disease would spread like wildfire. Yet, in hindsight, it seems to have been the lesser of evils.

Alas, there is still no consensus as to the cumulative total of fatalities that occurred in the different European states. Nonetheless, even sources that seem less favourable to the Swedish approach, such as the ‘Worldometer’ table on Wikipedia, rate their death toll as lower than Ireland’s per capita, despite a significantly older population. There were 1,860 Reported Deaths per million happening there, as opposed to the 1,980 here. (Original source: https://www.worldometers.info/ coronavirus/?utm_campaign= homeAdvegas1. See Wikipedia table, ‘Statistics by country and territory’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ COVID-19_pandemic_in_Europe).

Another metric provided by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ranks the Scandinavian nation lowest for overall cumulative excess deaths among a number of countries studied from 2020-22, at 6.8 per cent. By comparison Australia had 18 per cent, the U.K. 24.5 per cent, and the U.S.A. a rate of 54.1 per cent.

In retrospect, it is plausible that the ‘Irish Plan’ might have co-existed with either the Zero or Swedish approaches. Based on what was known at the time, it may have been worth trying a Zero approach initially. It probably would not have worked – not just because of a porous border with the North or membership of the European Union – but also because it seems that Covid-19 was already circulating in Europe as early as March, 2019.

Normalisation of House-Arrest

Intelligent leadership adapts to changing circumstance, and so, with the likely failure of the Zero-Covid approach, the Swedish model could – and should – have been adopted by the autumn of 2020. Had the Irish authorities adhered to their own plan, by that time, the universities would have been functioning as field hospitals. Yet that’s not what happened.

Instead, ‘temporary’ lockdowns, introduced in March 2020, were gradually normalised into a weird form of house arrest. Rather than lasting a few weeks, these ‘temporary’ measures would dominate our lives for almost two years. It was an unprecedented, draconian suppression of civil liberties, which became more tyrannical and absurd as time passed by.

The ‘new normal’ was to live within two kilometres of home, later extended to some five kilometres. All social activities were banned, bar a clap in one’s garden to thank ‘front-line’ staff. Meanwhile, Irish care homes – where air is often stuffy and poor quality – were left to fester with full occupancy, as sick elderly patients were released from hospitals. Consequently, the level of mortality that occurred in these institutions was second only to that of Canada during the first wave.

That the Taoiseach at the time of outbreak, Leo Varadkar, had previously been a medical doctor, was an initial source of hope that we would be guided by competent leadership.

Empty hospitals, however, such as Baggot Street and St. Bricin’s in Dublin, continued to lie idle. Elected representatives, including Varadkar, effectively devolved leadership to NPHET (the National Public Health Emergency Team for Covid-19). which was composed almost entirely of career civil servants – arguably with little ‘skin in the game’ if businesses were shut down – but whose pronouncements came to be treated with the same reverence as was once accorded to the Catholic hierarchy. Throughout that period their evaluations decided our destinies in ways that often seemed ridiculous.

Science becomes religion

Holohan’s decision to appoint Professor Philip Nolan – ‘The pair had known each other for years’ – to oversee disease modelling ought to have prompted concern. Nolan was then President of Maynooth University, his ‘research was in physiology – specifically the control of breathing and the cardiovascular system during sleep.’

With limited apparent research background or expertise in infectious diseases, Nolan’s wayward models – and bizarre commentary on antigen testing – informed Irish government decisions throughout the pandemic.

According to the authors of Pandemonium: Power, Politics and Ireland’s Pandemic (2022), ‘almost everyone who attended NPHET meetings agreed on one thing above all others: this was a Tony Holohan production.’ An unnamed source in that publication described his style as ‘very dictatorial and autocratic,’ and ‘intolerant of alternative views.’

Science became the new religion. Yet the measures often seemed scientifically questionable. Thus, in line with WHO guidance a positive PCR test within twenty-eight days of someone dying was listed as a Covid fatality – even if that poor individual had died in a car crash!

Meanwhile, ‘stay safe’ became ‘stay sane’ for many of us who watched scarce resources dwindle, as the normal conduct of business was prevented. Sadly, little adaption to challenging circumstance occurred in line with ‘the science’.

Who can forget the moral panic that ensued in the summer of 2020? Thus, tabloid photographers cunningly used long range lenses to foreshorten the view of people at beaches. Despite people sitting apart, it looked as if they were on top of one another. Subsequently, in January 2021 it emerged that not one case of transmission could be traced to the beach ‘outrages’ when assessed by the U.K. authorities.

‘The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty’?

The Irish state was set-up a century ago to prevent the coercion of Irish citizens. Notably, the fourth paragraph of the 1916 Proclamation asserts:

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Ergo the social contract on which this Republic is based ought to protect personal freedoms, within bounds. Yet, instead we had unprecedented and clearly disproportionate restrictions imposed on us by our own government. It seems that being ‘the best in the class’ mattered most of all to Irish politicians in terms of accepting dictates from European masters.

EU leadership?

Meanwhile, disastrously, leadership at the European level was sorely lacking: Rather than providing positive guidance to adapt to the reality that Covid was effectively endemic by the winter of 2020, the European Union supported lockdowns, a milder model of that first trialled in that great bastion of liberal democracy: the People’s Republic of China.

Hence the Germans banned outdoor markets – even though outdoor trade should have been encouraged. Meanwhile, only at the last minute did the Austrian government abandon the idea of forcing injections on recalcitrant civilians. Thus, it seems logical that there should be a proper inquiry into how Covid was handled at the E.U. level, as well as in each member state.

The unwillingness of the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to release communications with vaccine manufacturers, including text messages with Pfizer boss Albert Bourla, also raises serious questions regarding transparency.

In Ireland, the utter incompetence of Boris Johnson in the U.K. provided lasting cover. He was memorably, if somewhat bizarrely, compared to a rogue shopping trolley creating chaos about the place.

A regular refrain on Irish media, and in private conversations, was that ‘at least we’re not as bad as the Brits’. Thus, instead of finding ways to enable the maximum amount of people to live their lives as normally as possible, officialdom largely adopted a ‘no can do’ approach. At times, it almost seemed as if the state broadcaster was intent on terrorising the population into submission.

Irish Constitution

In such a challenging period, thoughts of God might may have come to mind. In line with the sentiments expressed in the 1916 Proclamation, Article 44 of the Irish Constitution of 1937 protects practice of faith from obstruction.

Unlike care homes, churches and temples are typically tall spacious venues with plenty of fresh air. There was little scientific basis for banning people from attending such places, provided certain measures were adopted – including ensuring adequate ventilation, personal space, and adapting rituals pertaining to communion and hand shaking.

In my view, the state was obliged to vindicate these rights. After all, what is the point of a constitutional right if serious efforts are not made to adhere to it in challenging circumstances?

Instead, essential freedoms were extinguished at the stroke of a pen. Thus, by early 2021, twelve months into the pandemic, what were effectively inmates of the twenty-six counties were being subjected to the most stringent restrictions on personal freedoms in Europe.

Lockdown gains?

It may be recalled that during Covid, there was talk about ‘building back better’; that society would become more compassionate; that we would have a notably better health system afterwards Today, little of that seems evident.

Indeed, under questioning in September 2020 from Michael McNamara TD in the Dáil, Taoiseach Micheál Martin revealed that just twenty-three ICU beds had been added since the start of the pandemic.

The impact of shutting down the construction trade for long periods should also not be overlooked. Homeless figures are now at an all-time high – amid huge levels of emigration, much of this in response to the state’s desultory attitude towards housing. All of this despite Ireland being the least densely populated state in the E.U., and supposedly among the richest.

Nonetheless, in both Cork city and Dún Laoghaire, earnest efforts were made during Covid to adapt and advance neighbourhoods by way of enhancing their public domains – thus facilitating local trade and improving amenities.

What then was the experience of Dublin City? As the main place of work for the country’s civil servants, the city centre was all the more quiet for their absence. While the country was undergoing the most severe of lockdowns in Europe, Dubliners were, to all intents and purposes, singled out for the most repressive regime of all.

Along with ‘front-line workers’, anyone involved in agriculture or food production during Covid was effectively exempt from restrictions on movement. Hence, it was the urban populations who were particularly hampered in the course of their normal lives – while many of their rural counterparts experienced much less difference, apart, obviously, from children being kept at home from school.

Despite it being well-established by 2021 that it was safe for people to socialise outside, March that year saw ordinary decent Dubliners being harassed by police for drinking outside in parks by the River Dodder – instead of gathering inside, where infection would more likely occur.

A few stretches of cycleways were added along Werburgh and Nassau Streets – with unsightly plastic bollards inserted there and elsewhere. Public toilets were provided in an ugly kiosk outside the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre – despite purpose-built public toilets being sited only sixty metres away inside Stephen’s Green, that the Office of Public Works keeps locked-up.

The only serious civic gain during that time was the pedestrianisation of Capel Street, and a small amount of pedestrian pavement being widened elsewhere.

Decline of Dublin

Otherwise, Dublin’s city centre clearly stagnated. A small vignette: throughout the entirety of Dublin 1, there is only one public glass recycling bank sited at Shamrock Street in Ballybough. That is obviously disastrous in terms of under-provision for such a densely populated area.

Coincidentally, every year, the Irish Times reports on the IBAL Litter Survey which repeatedly finds Dublin’s north inner city to be the worst in the state. Yet, during the ‘Covid Years’, City Council management actually moved to close down this one glass recycling facility! Fortunately it was saved in September 2022 – but only after intervention by councillors, (Alas, no reports in the Irish Times about any of that.)

Meanwhile, cops on the beat became far less visible around the inner city. There were regular reports of gang fights occurring around the quays as a thuggish culture festered, culminating in the notorious Dublin Riots of October 2023.

A lasting perception of inadequate personal safety has eroded public confidence, which has resulted in people avoiding town – further undermining the commercial viability of many of the businesses based therein.

Thus, the city centre is clearly now in crisis; once bedrock establishments of the city’s premier core around Stephen’s Green, such as Shanahan’s on the Green and Café en Seine, have either closed down or have seen profits halved.

The commissioning of a report last year by the government regarding O’Connell Street – while doing little else obvious otherwise – does not inspire confidence.

The prospect of an accountable elected City Mayor with powers has long been held out by central government as a logical solution for the city’s management. Yet just like the airport railway that has been repeatedly promised since the early 1970s, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Failure to adapt

Ultimately, the initial response by responsible citizens to adhere to extraordinary state rules in a time of crisis was abused beyond belief. On this, the neoliberal economist Milton Friedman was proven right: nothing becomes so permanent as a ‘temporary’ government programme.

Any hopes of the state responding to Covid in a progressive manner gradually evaporated. Official guidance regarding mandatory facemasks was never properly updated – despite clear evidence that the effectiveness of basic blue ‘surgical’ masks was minimal, at best. Had people been made aware of the efficacy of different mask types – albeit a secondary consideration to good ventilation – it would have enabled citizens to better manage their risk exposure.

Meanwhile, the arrival of low-cost, antigen Covid tests for home use offered an obvious way forward. People would have a quick way of identifying whether they would pass on the virus – and could act accordingly. Remarkably, however, NPHET’s Philip Nolan pronounced on Twitter that these were being offered by ‘snake-oil salesmen’!

Fortunately, outside eyes were watching. Harvard epidemiologist, Professor Michael Mina, brought some sense to proceedings by tweeting back at Nolan ‘For an advisor to your government – you don’t appear to know what you are talking about’, adding, ‘The comment adds nothing of benefit and further sows confusion. You should be ashamed of your demeanour here.’

Regime Media

So much media space was bought by the state by way of advertisements, it was Herculean. Unsurprisingly, counter-arguments were not encouraged, as few outlets were prepared to question the official line.

In hindsight, it is remarkable to consider the emphasis placed on encouraging individuals to take – and indeed coercing them into taking through passports – vaccines. The miraculous benefits of Pfizer, Moderna, and Astra-Zenica were all widely publicized at the time. Yet, the vaccine trials were not actually set up to prove they would either prevent transmission or serious illness.

When Astra Zenica was taken off the market entirely early last year, arising from ‘rare but serious’ side-effects, media coverage was muted. Meanwhile, the Johnson and Johnson vaccine has also been withdrawn from the market in the United States – but yet again, there seems to have been little reportage here on the magic shot being discontinued.

So, where were the brave journalists questioning what was happening at the time, or now for that matter? Aside from photos of naughty social occasions that leaked onto the internet, commercial media organs essentially competed with one other to be the first to publicize official edicts. There is little reason to suspect any difference in future. Other than a few honourable exceptions, it seems what we have in this country is a propaganda apparatus, as opposed to a free media.

The pronouncements of NPHET were all that mattered. Nine euros was sanctioned as the minimal spend when eating out – presumably because Covid was waiting for an eight euro offer?

All the time, people delayed necessary health checks and procedures – initially ‘to flatten the curve’ – and so critical conditions may have gone untreated. Others put on weight through inactivity.

There was also the undoubted impact on many people’s mental health, as after a few months, the grim reality of forced isolation, without-end-in-sight, pushed many towards the edge. At least in part, such factors may explain Ireland’s highly elevated mortality in the wake of Covid. All this underlines the need for a robust inquiry into the state’s management of that period.

Any Accountability?

It seems to me that the cumulative effects of Ireland’s Covid response surely did more harm than good. Now, if this state is to do its job properly in future – if we are to learn anything from that dystopian time – it is essential to conduct a transparent and rigorous assessment of the response.

The effects of that period were pronounced and are, to some extent, ongoing. For example, it is notable that the number of recipients of sick benefit in England and Wales has increased by 38% since Covid. How does that tally with the experience here? Lacking powers to compel witnesses and documents, how can the state’s Covid ‘Review’ properly assess impacts of its response during that time?

I fear nothing will be learned from this Review, as it lacks the necessary powers. Yet where are the elected representatives who should be demanding the proper statutory inquiry that is necessary?

Without such a process, if we ever encounter a similar challenge, it is worrying that the state’s agents – ‘the permanent government’ of civil servants – may fail to have due regard to fundamental constitutional rights.

Game On (for some)

Memorably, with restrictions on sports, almost all facilities were shut down – despite most activities being held outdoor. Notably, golf and hill-walking were prohibited – even though these presented the least threat of exposure to an airborne virus.

As time went on, some allowances were made for certain sporting bodies – such as the GAA. Again, Dublin benefited least, as that body’s membership is disproportionately rural.

By year two, the emergence of a two-tier state seemed fairly clear, with the GAA allowed to have over 40,000 spectators from Mayo and Tyrone attend the All-Ireland Football final in Croke Park on September 11, 2021 – at a time when many businesses in that part of Dublin were closed down.

The decision-making process that allowed the match to take place was notable, as the ‘new’ freedoms were only announced retrospectively – with a press statement issued on September 9th stating: ‘From 6 September, indoor events can take place with 60% of the venue’s maximum capacity, provided all the people attending are fully vaccinated or have recovered from COVID-19 in the past 6 months’. Did the GAA know something that the rest of us didn’t when arranging the fixture?

Party On

Only later did it emerge that as early as June 2020, the Department of Foreign Affairs on Stephen’s Green were hosting soirées in spite of the rules – well before Boris’s notorious Christmas Downing Street parties later that same year.

Meanwhile, a retirement gathering in RTE featuring some of the best known presenters on the station, was found to have involved five breaches in relation to Covid 19 advice, protocols and regulations.

Memorably, an apparent sense of entitlement also extended to then E.U. Commissioner Phil Hogan, who was forced to resign in August 2020 after being caught breaking the rules by playing golf and having supper afterwards. And with that, went the best opportunity Ireland had to influence E.U. affairs at its most senior level.

Even a year later, little seemed to have been learned, when it emerged that the former Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone, had held a party on July 21 for around fifty attendees in the garden of the Merrion Hotel. But that was all happily resolved when the Government Press Office released a statement a fortnight later stating that the Attorney General was of the view that it was permissible for outdoor gatherings of up to 200 people.

How can such carry-on occur in a proper democracy? It seems that rules could be retrospectively interpreted differently if required.

Justice for the Plebs

Yet the leniency shown to ‘the few’ sharply contrasts with the dogged pursuit of ‘the many’. For the outrageous crime of spreading the Lord’s Word, in December 2022 three Evangelical Christian street preachers were prosecuted for holding an outdoor event beyond five kilometres of their homes the previous year. Consequently, those three men each now have criminal records – having never had them before.

As of August 2023, it was reported that there had been a staggering 13,000 prosecutions under the Health Acts against Covid offenders – and yet even today, this madness has seemingly not stopped!

Only this week, in February 2025, the trial date has been set in April for the prosecution of the so-called ‘Dubai Two’ who allegedly broke quarantine rules during that period. Thus. two young mothers face the prospect of a month in jail and a €2,000 fine.

Where is the Republic that ‘guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens’ as per the 1916 Proclamation?

Vaccine vs Liberty?

Based on that experience, it is impossible to ever again trust the state to ‘suspend’ civil liberties. What reward was there for compliance?

Let’s not forget that only the day before the 2021 GAA football final, it was reported that 90% of Irish adults were fully vaccinated. Yet, a mere four days later, Holohan was out again warning that further lockdowns were on the agenda – as indeed occurred, with restrictions only ending fully in February 2022.

So then, if the vaccines were so effective, why then were we again subjected to lockdowns after much of the population had been vaccinated? Either the vaccines worked, and subsequent lockdowns should not have occurred – or else the vaccines were not so effective, and the emphasis put on mass inoculation was incorrect. This argument needs to be addressed.

Even with the high rates of vaccination and diminished threat, as late as January 2022, members of NPHET were contemplating force injecting the small minority outstanding.

All of this points to the need for public confidence to be restored – by way of a robust evaluation as to how matters were managed. It is now five years since Covid began, and three since it ended; people’s memories will be getting hazy.

RTÉ: Rewarding Failure?

And what of the media apparatus that helped ensure compliance in the population? The year after Covid ended, the wheels came off the wagon of RTÉ, when it emerged that there had been serious problems with the finances and management at the state-owned company.

Memorably the then Director General Dee Forbes resigned in June, 2023. Around the same time, Ryan Tubridy’s ‘secret’ payments subsequently came to light.

Problems in that organisation were evident for some time, as was previously raised in this publication, well before it exploded onto the national consciousness.

Nonetheless, it appears that the Covid period provided cover for questionable practices, both within that organisation and in other state agencies.

But this was small beer compared to the €725 million fixed upon the Exchequer only last year by the government to ensure RTÉ’s continued operation until 2028. That cash could be used to build up to 1,500 houses, potentially reducing the state’s homeless population by almost a third. Instead, it is being shovelled into an economic albatross that loyally served the government, when the people required rigorous journalism.

How can we expect accountability at the state broadcaster when cash is shoveled in so easily?

So then, whatever happened to the assertion in the 1916 Proclamation about ‘cherishing all of the children of the nation equally’?

Looking North

Thus, it is interesting to look North, as they took a somewhat different approach. It’s a different jurisdiction, but with a broadly similar social make-up.

In the main, similar restrictions were adopted, with schools and pubs closed for much of the period. It was far from perfect in terms of coping with the crisis, with criticisms at the time, and since, as stated in evidence. Restrictions on social assemblies were clearly detested in some quarters, most memorably by a vocal Van Morrison.

Yet, over time, a different approach gradually emerged. For example, in the first year, as occurred with crowd events in the south, the Orangemen called off their summer marches to prevent contagion. This was a sensible approach, given the knowledge at that time – and arguably more notable given that body has not always been associated with responsible approaches.

But by the second summer, however, the Orangemen allowed outdoor, localised events to go on. Again, this was consistent with an evidence-based response. Simply put, the Orangemen got it right in terms of their Covid response!

Last summer a suitably robust Inquiry was conducted in the North into how the state there had responded – with the BBC reporting that it had heard ‘devastating evidence with multiple failings across several departments.’ Hardly a ringing endorsement for that state’s response, which made for uncomfortable listening for many of those involved. Yet, the process may prove cathartic if mistakes are not to be repeated.

As part of that inquiry, elected representatives were asked to turn over all text and WhatsApp messages from the period. Unfortunately, Sinn Féin politicians had apparently deleted the most relevant ones. In contrast, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) disclosed their texts. One member, Edwin Poots, appeared to have regarded Covid as a ‘Catholic’ disease – but, in fairness, he seems to have been an outlier.

More encouraging were the texts from the current Joint First Minister, Emma Little-Pengelly, who voiced concern for children from poorer areas who were dependent on free school meals, which were to be suspended during school closures. This was a thoughtful and compassionate approach.

Obvious need for a statutory Covid Inquiry in the ‘Republic’

What could be learned from a comparable Covid inquiry in the South? Certainly, it would be very useful to gauge how the state implemented its emergency plan; how it adapted to new data; and how it will respond should a similar scenario ever again arise. MacNeill’s 1913 article resonates yet again; much can be learned from the approach adopted in Ulster.

Instead, a culture of non-transparency that developed during Covid seems to have been normalised throughout the Southern government. Rather than a statutory Covid inquiry with accountability prioritised, it appears the so-called Republic are now to be governed according to secret pacts made with elected independent representatives.

To borrow a description from Theobald Wolfe Tone, the last regime was ‘execrable’; and yet, there is every reason to fear the new administration may be even worse.

Alas, it is hard to see how a non-statutory ‘review’ without powers to compel witnesses or documents will find much that is not already part of the establishment’s narrative.

Without adequate explanations, as an inquiry could allow, my faith in this state has been shattered. Simply put, once entrusted with special powers, the government made a bad situation bloody awful.

God forbid, if a proper inquiry was to occur, perhaps we might learn that at most crucial junctures, this state and at least some of its agents see themselves as beyond accountability – and are happy to force citizens to carry the cost of demented policies.

Should this state ever again try to enforce measures such as those during Covid, I for one will be looking North to see how the Orange brethren respond. In the absence of accountable government here, I have learned to respect those who at least seem to prize their own civil liberties.