Only Four Weeks In and the New Year Already Feels Exhausting
Even with expectations set low the government still manages to disappoint
We’re now in the fourth week of the new year. But there’s nothing new about what we’re facing. A mixture of incompetence, indifference, and ignorance on the part of the government means that we’re looking at a lockdown lasting months. The government’s roll-out of the vaccine has been slow and seems to continually hit bumps along a road littered with debris from a crumbling healthcare system.
Students are again left in limbo as the schools are reopening until they aren’t, unless they are again. Norma Foley’s tenure as minister for education has been blighted by errors of her own making. Arriving an hour late to a meeting with members of the opposition to brief them on the issue of the schools and then not taking questions has become par for the government course by now.
Nothing learned
The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) has made it clear that the schools can’t reopen. At least not yet. And at least not until the case numbers have substantially fallen. Whether the government takes this on board is another matter. But given its history of ignoring NPHET’s advice until it absolutely has to, students and teachers are right to treat the Department of Education with a degree of cynicism.
Leo Varadkar has said things can’t return to any kind of normality until cases are in the low hundreds. All well and good until one quickly remembers that reopening before and over Christmas when the numbers were at a similar level is what gave us the current wave we’re hobbling through.
When the government eased restrictions in the lead-up to Christmas NPHET was reporting cases in the low hundreds. On 17 December, the day before the government reopened the economy NPHET reported 484 new cases and an R number of between 1.1 and 1.3
Varadkar, it seems, has learned nothing. Or perhaps he never intended to in the first place. All that matters is the economy. Everything else, naturally, springs from a functioning economy in which functioning means the usual upwards transfer of wealth. Milton Friedman would be proud.
Green with apathy
Meanwhile, the Green Party apparently exists. Apparently. Eamon Ryan and friends have been relatively silent over the last three weeks while various Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael stalwarts come out to mismanage that particular day’s crisis.
Having lived through the bailout of the banks and subsequent recession many of us had low expectations of a government with the Greens’ involvement. So it’s impressive that even with standards set so low the party still manages to disappoint.
When the government was being formed a few people suggested the Greens were only being welcomed into the coalition to act as a mudguard for Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. That prediction was too generous and the party continues to bleed members. It’s almost a certainty that the party will be wiped out come the next general election. Few tears will be shed by the general public.
Early days
Regardless of these failings, we’re likely going to be stuck with this government for at least another year. In its own way the pandemic has been a gift to our supposed leaders. Public opposition in the form of mass protests has been limited, and has to be, because of how people spread the virus. Mobilisations on the level of the anti-water charge protests are impossible for activists to safely organise.
A vaccine is on the way though. Given the government’s history so far, it’ll probably take a lot longer for a substantial part of the population to be vaccinated. But when the threshold has been met, expect thousands on the streets.
From mismanagement of the pandemic resulting in the needless deaths of thousands, to ignoring the plight of the homeless, and an ostensibly environmental justice-based party choosing to ignore the seriousness of climate change, the government is on shaky ground at best. Who knows what disaster it’ll unleash on us next.
And we’re not even into February yet.