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The clue is in the name. It is the government’s ‘Plan to live with Covid-19’.
Unfortunately, “living with” and “Covid-19” are contradictory propositions.
The more activity returns to normal, the more the virus spreads, resulting in more restrictions.
That is the cycle that the political system now faces.
Ireland’s policy on the virus has slowly changed.
In spring, the then government closed the country as much as possible to contain the pandemic.
Now, the administration of Taoiseach Micheál Martin is taking a position that shutting down the economy and society at large is no longer an option.
Children need to go to school and businesses must continue to operate, to the extent possible, although hospitality and the arts are exceptions and have been hit hard by restrictions.
The question is whether all the arms of the State have fully assimilated the idea of ”living with Covid-19″.
Some opposition observers and politicians criticized Tánaiste Leo Varadkar’s comments about the National Public Health Emergency Team on RTÉ’s Claire Byrne Live last Monday as unedifying.
His comments illustrate a frustration at the heart of the government.
Medical advice is driven by the motivation to keep everyone safe, and the Level 5 restrictions advocated by NPHET would amount to an unacceptable “lockdown,” according to Martin.
It is something that the Fine Gael, the Greens and Fianna Fáil are not prepared to do. Not now anyway.
When NPHET proposed moving to the most severe level of restrictions, Mr. Varadkar said: “None of those people [in NPHET], for example, he would have faced being on Pandemic Unemployment Pay yesterday. “
None of them “would have to tell someone they were losing their job, and none of them would have had to close their business for the last time.”
‘None of those people would have faced being in #PUPPY, none of them have to tell someone that they are losing their job, none of them will have to close a deal for the last time ‘- Tánaiste Leo Varadkar in #NPHET #cblive pic.twitter.com/ZAw7sDxGLo
– Claire Byrne Live (@ClaireByrneLive) October 5, 2020
He said: “And I’m not talking about the economy, I’m talking about something that could have happened to half a million human beings tomorrow, and sometimes the reason and why politicians make these decisions is because we are the one who can see the big picture. general “.
That bigger picture is the crux of the matter. The state medical council is pushing the Cabinet in one direction, but the interests of children’s education, non-Covid-19 healthcare, and the economy are pushing it in another direction.
Politically, the government crossed a Rubicon by failing to follow NPHET’s advice, instead moving to a lower level of national restrictions than recommended.
The virus will be with us for an extended period of time and the new policy is a balancing act: keeping as much of the country open as possible, while trying to limit the spread of the disease.
Ireland is going to have a deficit of around 21 billion euros this year, the gap between what the state collected in revenue and what it spent on hospitals, schools and other public services.
Much of the spending was generated during the initial shutdown of the economy, as thousands lost jobs.
Now a series of policies have reoriented the state towards a limited version of normalcy, despite the renewed spread of the virus.
People can no longer request mortgage payment balances from banks, the pandemic unemployment payment has been reduced, and the government introduced a stay and spending plan for hospitality despite the severe reduction of pubs, restaurants and hotels.
Add to that list the substantial € 7.4 billion stimulus plan that was announced in July to help get people back to work.
It is worth remembering that unemployment is still a very high 15% and will remain at 10% next year, according to estimates.
Next week will see the Government outlining the outlook for next year when it releases its Budget.
It will say a lot about how much the state plans to intervene in sectors that have never required public money before.
This week, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe announced that the government would use the state rainy day fund of 1.5 billion euros to finance part of the budget.
No one argued that it was not an appropriate use of money.
The next day, the body managing Ireland’s growing national debt raised the same number of international investors.
One billion euros of that money was borrowed at negative interest rates; in other words, investors paid money to Ireland for the privilege of lending to the country.
This is the upside down world of the Covid-19 economy, where the EU has suspended normal borrowing rules, while the European Central Bank is printing money and interest rates remain at zero.
But that cannot last forever.
At some point, investors will see that Ireland has made very limited progress in dealing with its € 200 billion national debt since the financial crisis.
When that happens, the interest rate on our loans will slowly rise and the government will be forced to take steps to reduce the deficit (in other words, increase taxes or reduce spending, or both).
In the meantime, Ireland’s economy, society, politicians and leading public health experts will have to learn to live with Covid-19.
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