Dispatches from a Pandemic: ‘A toxic scandal’: Ireland becomes a test case on how NOT to battle COVID-19
DUBLIN — Do as I say, not as I do.
That appears to be the message from some senior government figures in Ireland who have told the public not to congregate in crowds, especially indoors, and to avoid traveling abroad for purposes other than emergencies or essential work reasons.
Ireland’s European Union Commissioner for Trade Phil Hogan resigned late Wednesday after he attended an 81-person golf-society dinner, which directly contravened government guidelines on social distancing, and was reportedly seen dining in a public restaurant of a country club, despite being subject to a 14-day quarantine on return from Brussels.
“ ‘Small-town thinking like this has been a major slap for me, and many like me, who have observed all of the restrictions, who didn’t hug their parents or see their parents for months.’ ”
He handed in his resignation to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, who has asked the Irish government to propose a man and a woman for the role of Irish commissioner to replace Hogan.
It became clear in recent days that von der Leyen did not believe Hogan’s position was tenable as his movements in the days before the now-infamous dinner became increasingly unclear.
“Over the past days I discussed with Phil Hogan about his movements in Ireland, in light of information that emerged regarding respect of public-health guidelines in Ireland,” the European Commissioner president said.
“In the current circumstances as Europe fights to reduce the spread of the coronavirus and Europeans make sacrifices and accept painful restrictions, I expect the members of the college to be particularly vigilant about compliance with applicable national or regional rules or recommendations,” she added.
Minister for Agriculture Dara Calleary and deputy chairperson of the Senate Jerry Buttimer, who attended the golf-society dinner, also resigned last week.
The dinner took place just one day after the government issued stricter guidance to prevent the spread of COVID-19, capping outdoor private gatherings at 15 people and limiting indoor events to six people, unless an exemption was granted by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.
The Daily Mail called it: “A Toxic Scandal.” The Daily Mirror, another British tabloid that releases an Irish edition in Ireland, led with photos of some of those who attended the dinner and a one-word headline: “Muppets.”
The dinner — predominantly attended by men from the world of politics, business, the law and journalism — was held at a hotel in County Galway, in the west of Ireland, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Oireachtas Golf Society. (“Oireachtas” is Gaelic for Irish Parliament.) Another luminary in attendance: Supreme Court justice and former attorney general Séamus Wolfe.
Calleary, the now-former Minister for Agriculture, said before his resignation, “Specifically in my letter of resignation I acknowledged front line workers and their families and public-health workers, the damage I’ve done to their work, unintentionally.”
The Irish public was both gripped by and aghast at the controversy. “Small-town thinking like this has been a major slap for me, and many like me, who have observed all of the restrictions, who didn’t hug their parents or see their parents for months,” Breffni Burke, a public-relations consultant, said. “There was too much emphasis on business over health.”
“We had everything in our favor at the beginning of this because we are an island. It would have taken nothing to enforce travel bans,” she said. “We didn’t take it. There are too many lobby groups and too many commercial interests. The government we have is trying to please everybody.”
“You can’t please anybody and keep a pandemic at bay,” Burke added. “There’s a movement in the medical community called “Zero COVID” and they are calling for a lockdown, but that won’t be popular. A good government will make unpopular decisions for the greater good of society.”
Mary Lou McDonald, leader of the opposition left-of-center Sinn Féin party, which began as the political voice of the Irish Republican Army, which for the three decades until 1998 waged a violent campaign to unite Ireland, expressed dismay at the Oireachtas dinner: “This is not a country club,” she told local television news. “It is a parliament.”
Ireland is not New Zealand
Writing in the Irish Times, Dr. Jack Lambert, a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at the University College Dublin School of Medicine, said, “Elimination of coronavirus in Ireland is a fantasy. It is a dream that will not be achieved in the immediate future.”
Ireland has been compared to another island on the other side of the world with a similar-sized population — New Zealand — but for all the wrong reasons. New Zealand had early success in flattening the curve of new coronavirus cases, and had similar advantages to Ireland.
“ Ireland’s coronavirus response has been compared to another island on the other side of the world with a similar-sized population — New Zealand — but for all the wrong reasons. ”
The country’s isolated location in the South Pacific afforded it both the time and space to witness how fast the disease spread across other parts of the world, and it was able to act swiftly and decisively to restrict movement and impose an early lockdown. Ireland locked down on March 27.
Lambert said comparisons between New Zealand and Ireland should stop: “There are calls for Ireland to adopt a New Zealand model, but New Zealand is not a part of the European Union, and it does not share a common border with Northern Ireland. This model will not work for Ireland.”
Until last week, New Zealand had reported no new cases for 102 days. Ireland is a country on the northwest periphery of Europe, while New Zealand is located off the southeastern coast of Australia. Like the Republic of Ireland, New Zealand has a population of 4.9 million.
Ireland shares a land border with another country — the U.K. province of Northern Ireland — and people from the north (including travelers from other countries who travel through Northern Ireland) are not required to quarantine for 14 days if they cross into the Republic.
Johns Hopkins University ranks Ireland at No. 19 in the world on a list of COVID-related deaths per capita: 36.6 per 100,000 with a case-fatality rate of 6.3%, versus 0.45 per 100,000 and 1.3% in New Zealand, and 54.9 per 100,000 and case-fatality rate of 3.1% in the U.S.
As of Thursday, Ireland had reported 28,363 coronavirus cases to date and total number of COVID-related deaths of 1,777. In comparison, New Zealand has just 1,702 cases and 22 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
“We have already wasted too much time by comparing ourselves to New Zealand,” Lambert wrote. “We are interdependent on the E.U. and the U.K. and we need to work together, not in isolation. We need to allow non-E.U. countries with a good coronavirus record to travel in and out of Ireland.”
“We need to have a robust screening plan at the airports and our borders which include selective coronavirus testing,” he added. “We need to collectively work out an Irish plan that permits us to safely move forward. Our medical and economic health are interdependent.”
Dispatches from a pandemic: Ireland is a nation of saints, scholars and the status quo.
Restaurants, pubs, cafes and hairdressers were among the businesses that can currently open across Ireland provided they can observe social distancing rules to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. (Photo: Charles McQuillan/Getty.)
Ireland’s tourism chief took vacation to Italy
The slew of resignations in recent days is not the first COVID-related political embarrassment here. Michael Cawley, the chairman of the state tourism board who previously served as the deputy chief executive of Irish airline Ryanair RYAAY, +2.39%, resigned while on vacation in Italy.
His holiday was all the more surprising given that Fáilte Ireland had been spearheading a major campaign to convince Irish people to avoid flying overseas in an effort to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and to instead vacation at home and support local businesses.
Cawley is also listed as a member of the board of directors of no-frills Ryanair, whose Chief Executive Michael O’Leary last week accused authorities of pursuing an “isolationist” response to the coronavirus pandemic.
“ ‘We need, as a country, for the next couple of weeks to massively cut down the level of congregation that we are engaged in to get this virus suppressed again.’ ”
Jack McDermot, a Dublin-based marketing and strategy consultant, said clear communication is critical in such an uncertain time, and the latest scandals illustrate the importance of presenting a united front when asking people to make sacrifices. “Done well from the top, it instills confidence and solidarity in the population,” he said. “Executed badly, it leads to confusion, anger and resentment.”
He said Ireland was wrong-footed by the twin concepts of the “green list” — the list of countries where people could return from without quarantining for 14 days — and advice NOT to travel for leisure. McDermot said Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin “just couldn’t seem to delineate this for people. And it was his job to do it.”
Ireland also reported one of the highest rates of COVID-related nursing-home deaths in the world. Some 62% of fatalities from the virus occurred in nursing homes, a rate exceeded only by Canada, leading doctors to call on the government for earlier and stricter social-distancing guidelines.
“The number of deaths in nursing homes here is a disaster,” McDermot added. “I do feel sympathy for the government, the Health Service Executive and nursing home management. It shouldn’t have happened. Nursing homes, like other key elements of the health system, are overstretched.”
Ireland has recorded one of the highest rates of COVID-related nursing-home deaths in the world. Some 62% of fatalities from the virus occurred in nursing homes, a rate exceeded only by Canada, leading doctors to call on the government for earlier and stricter social-distancing guidelines.
Another puzzle for health professionals here: The Irish government only introduced a mandatory face-mask policy in stores earlier this month, four months after the World Health Organization and other international health authorities changed their official policy on face masks to recommend people wear them to help stop the spread of the virus.
Dr. Ronan Glynn, Ireland’s acting chief medical officer, has called for the public to take the virus more seriously. “We need, as a country, for the next couple of weeks to massively cut down the level of congregation that we are engaged in to get this virus suppressed again,” he said last week.
Burke, the public-relations consultant, agrees, but says political leadership on the pandemic has been less-than-stellar. The fact that the Oireachtas golf dinner was for government figures, she said, reveals a systemic problem that makes one rule for the political establishment and another rule for everyone else.
“New Zealand should be applauded of how the model can be done effectively and well. We are an island. I can still go to Dublin Airport and get on a flight anywhere,” she said. “Irish people do not like being told that they can’t do something, even something as simple as wearing a mask.”
“Now we are in a state of half-undone, and no one is happy,” Burke added. “We all want to return to our normal lives, but the only way to do this is together, and we need a firm hand at the wheel. There are amazing people in this country, like Ronan Glynn, listen to them, they care.”
Quentin Fottrell, a native of Ireland, writes that senior government figures have been flouting the official rules designed to keep the coronavirus pandemic at bay.
EU Commissioner was stopped by police
Adding to the drama surrounding the 81-person golf-society dinner, Hogan, who returned from Brussels on July 31, confirmed that he was stopped by Irish police for using his mobile phone while driving in Kildare on Aug. 17 as he was en route to the now-infamous golf-society event. He was cautioned, but did not receive penalty points.
It was also alleged by witnesses that he had broken his 14-day quarantine. “He stopped briefly at his apartment to collect personal belongings and essential documents relating to the E.U.-U.S. trade negotiations, which continued while the commissioner was in Galway,” a spokesman for Hogan said.
However, newspaper reports alleged that he was seen dining in a restaurant at the K Club, a country club in the midlands, even though he should have been still isolating. Hogan reportedly stayed at the Dunraven Arms Hotel in Limerick in the southwest of Ireland on Aug. 12, and dined at a restaurant in the local town of Adare while there. His 14-day quarantine officially ended on Aug. 13.
After attempting to weather the scandal over several days, Hogan finally resigned this week at the behest of the European Commission President. He admitted breaking government guidelines related to COVID-19, but he denied breaking the law.
“It was becoming increasingly clear that the controversy concerning my recent visit to Ireland was becoming a distraction from my work as an EU commissioner and would undermine my work in the key months ahead,” he said in the statement. “I deeply regret that my trip to Ireland — the country that I have been so proud to represent as a public servant for most of my adult life — caused such concern, unease and upset.”
He was not wrong on that last point. “The current shenanigans have demonstrated we have a micro-thinking government,” Burke, the public-relations consultant, added. “This is always going to be this kind of problem in Ireland. Everyone is always looking after their own backyard and, in this latest case, they were looking after the Oireachtas Golf Society.”
This article is part of a MarketWatch series, ‘Dispatches from a pandemic.’
As of Thursday, COVID-19 has now killed at least 827,110 people worldwide. The U.S. has the world’s highest number of confirmed COVID-19 cases (5,832,581) and deaths (179,977). Worldwide, confirmed cases are now at 24,234,340. The Dow Jones Industrial Index DJIA, +0.56%, the S&P 500 SPX, +0.16% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.34% were all higher Thursday.
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