During a pandemic being on a small island is a slice of luck.
However, you have to recognise that geographic reality.
Sadly, on this small island, we have a minority of folk who are in denial about that basic fact.
Consequently, we have not had a 32 County approach to the Covid crisis since the get-go.
This has undoubtedly cost lives on both asides of the British imposed Partition line.
Last night the DUP used a technicality to go against the advice of the Chief Medical Officer in the Six Counties.
Here Mary Lou McDonald of Sinn Féin doesn’t miss the appalling vandalism of the DUP position:
“shocking that the DUP have turned a public health issue into an orange versus green issue”.
Alliance leader Naomi Long also called out the DUP use of the cross-community veto.
As RTE’s Claire Byrne observed the Covid rates in Northern Ireland are FOUR TIMES what they are in the 26 Counties.
However, that’s not the case here in Dún na nGall.
Your humble correspondent is in the top left-hand corner juat next to a dysfunctional artificially created statelet.
Of course, the virus doesn’t recognise the Border and the people in the North West region of this small island are in a bad place at the moment.
Pandemics tend to be epochal events that create long-lasting societal changes.
For example, I cannot see how the two-tier health system in the 26 Counties will survive the Covid crisis.
Ironically, a Republic of Ireland NHS is now on the agenda just as the Brits get ready to privatise theirs post-Brexit.
Similarly, the Laager mindset of Unionists in Northern Ireland that they somehow do not inhabit a small island with the rest of us cannot survive Covid.
Hospitals in the Six Counties are at breaking point and this decision at Storment will have real-life consequences.
Perhaps Snarlene and her crew might come up with some emblem of remembrance for those in the North of this small island who died because of a lack of a 32 County approach.
Lest we forget…
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Would love to know what the medals on her right lapel are for.
Medals worn on the right are generally medals won and worn on behalf of your family ie father,grandfather etc.
Brexit or no Brexit,it’s not obvious where the notion of privatising the NHS in the four devolved nations of the UK came from since each nation controls their own NHS.
In fact a major part of the UK NHS has been private right from the start-GPs are independent contractors and are not NHS employees.
However, an NHS in the Republic would be a great idea. The GPs are a law unto themselves and charge anything from 50 – 100 euros for the honour of visiting them, unless you have a medical card.
The Irish government has tried to rein in the GPs without success.
In the UK people don’t have to pay their GPs.
And I’m not sure the inhabitants of the 6 counties are ready to start.
When Sláintecare is implemented paying for a GPO visit will be a thing of the past here.
The Covid crisis has accelerated the move to an Irish NHS.
IUnitnded consequences…
There isn’t a party in Dáil Éireann who will now stand against a single-tier health service-although some (Fine Gael) will want to do so.
Thats not a long trenchcoat and a broad black brimmer she is wearing to remember the fallen is it?
Holy F***k it’s Colin Firth…in disguise!