Higgins calls on people to redouble efforts to avoid infection with Covid-19

Breaches of solidarity in the State during the Covid-19 pandemic “damage, and have damaged” social unity and rules should be obeyed by people trying to be good citizens, President Michael D Higgins has said.

Everyone’s personal health is more secure when public health advice is heeded, said the President: “ Following the guidelines and the advice is, fundamentally, an act of good citizenship.”

However, he went on: “Our righteous concerns must not be allowed to dislodge us from our common purpose – that of, by following the advice in relation to public health which we are determined to do out of good citizenship, we will, together, suppress the virus.”

In a six-minute video address to reflect on the six months since lockdown was imposed, President Higgins emphasised solidarity, care, compassion and kindness.

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“I believe that we must now, with our schools re-opened, muster a fresh determination to give our efforts, as the late John B Keane might put it, ‘our almighty best’.”

In a reference to the 1,781 who have died with the disease in Ireland he said: “We must, it goes without saying, continue to share the grief of those who have lost loved ones.

“We must share, too, the distress of those whose lives and livelihoods have been changed, and address the loneliness being experienced by those who have been cut off from contact with those who previously sustained them.”

Insisting that the use of Doomsday-style language about the threat posed by Covid-19 is “insufficient and mostly unhelpful in our present circumstances”, Mr Higgins said people must draw strength and encouragement from each other.

Implicitly criticising some attitudes towards the elderly and others, he said he was “frankly disappointed” at the understanding shown of the importance of relations between the young and the old and “and the many who do not fit neatly into these categories”.

“Understanding this is what enables the fine lines that might accompany the broad brushstrokes of the measures we are taking, to be drawn – drawn with sensitivity, as well as with risk taken into account,” he said.

Solidarity

Mr Higgins said invoking solidarity required everybody to understand there are differences in capacity, circumstances and vulnerabilities.

He also said the post-Covid Ireland must be an economy and society that has care as a central purpose.

“‘Care’ means we need to accept that, in their implementation, all of the necessary proposals will fall on those of differing capacities and resources.”

He also said that kindness should inform the response.

“What we communicate with each other, and how, must not be in any form of cold language that invokes fear, but rather one that conveys a warmth, one that reflects a shared concern for us all.”

“While the rehearsal of Doomsday might have been useful perhaps, on occasion, in other circumstances, it is insufficient and mostly unhelpful in our present circumstances.”

He concluded that the best way of appreciating front line workers who had taken risks night and day for the past six months was or everybody to redouble their efforts to avoid infection.

“Let’s do that together. Déanaimis é.”