Michael McDowell: Time to reopen our democracy

Now that building sites are reopened and retail is returning to normal, the question arises as to how our democratic institutions have performed and will perform in the wake of the pandemic.

Assuming that the Indian variant of the virus does not derail reopening our social and economic lives, we must examine how our democracy has functioned during the pandemic.

A major casualty of Covid-19 has been our national parliament. At the outset, and even before the Government was formed, Dáil Éireann established a Covid committee under the able chairmanship of independent TD Michael McNamara. The idea that a specialist committee of elected politicians – potentially a valuable instrument of accountability – would monitor the State’s response to the pandemic, was good.

Lamentably the committee was quickly wound up and its functions scattered among a wide range of Oireachtas committees matching individual Ministers. The specialist committee overseeing the State’s response to the pandemic was shelved because it did not fit with the orthodoxy of our parliament or the desires of Ministers.

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The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) was never really made accountable on a consistent basis. Even the Covid committee had considerable trouble in exacting continuous accountability from Nphet and from Ministers with particular responsibility for implementing Government policy and decisions.

Regulations were passed under the Health Act with far-reaching social and economic consequences for the people. None were seriously examined line-by-line as to necessity, wisdom or effectiveness. The relationship between the Cabinet and its expert advisers remained opaque.

Ireland was especially vulnerable to Covid because we had one of the lowest ratios of intensive care beds per head of population in Europe. This particular vulnerability exposed the State to a real risk that its health service would be overwhelmed in the absence of countermeasures. And that imposed on Government an unusual duty of precautionary conservativism in its response.

Our coronavirus-related mortality per capita was much lower compared with that of the United Kingdom. At one level some will argue that we got things right. God only knows what would have happened if vaccines had not arrived so quickly.

Who will now review our response in order to assess its different aspects? Was it necessary to close down construction rather than meat plants? Did the 5km travel restriction have any real beneficial effect? Did the ban on inter-county travel, in its various forms, really assist in controlling the virus? It is easy to pose these questions; it is difficult, at this stage, to answer them and similar questions with any degree of certainty.

We implemented a radical and sometimes harsh smorgasbord of restrictions on social and economic activity, and it is difficult to sort out what worked and what did not work, what was needed and what was excessive, and, importantly, what should or should not be done in the event of a major resurgence of this virus in some shape or form, or of a new pandemic. This review cannot be long postponed. It can’t be a case of Nphet assessing itself.

Our parliament is, in effect, reduced to a mere skeleton in respect of its two major functions: ensuring accountability from government and deciding the substance of our laws and regulations. Important legislation was rushed through without adequate consideration by use of the guillotine. Little or no discussion was permitted or afforded on the content of the regulations which Ministers made in response to Covid-19.

No Minister had to defend any of the detail of those regulations or face serious questioning as to their adequacy or necessity.

While it is true that the pandemic is an emergency and that emergency-type responses were both necessary and sensible, it does not follow that the duty of elected politicians in a democracy to scrutinise and challenge far-reaching restrictive measures was put in some form of political abeyance.

If construction sites, meat plants and retail stores can reopen, the time has come to fully reopen the Oireachtas. This may even entail the somewhat unpopular course of treating the parliamentary process as an essential service and vaccinating those who work in the Oireachtas so as to facilitate its workings to the maximum extent. That would not be queue-jumping; it badly needs to be done.

At present, there is little or no accountability or supervision of the governmental function. This cannot continue. When the Houses resume sitting in September, there has, at the very least, to be a return to functional effectiveness. It isn’t just a matter of the Convention Centre ceasing to be our sepulchral Dáil chamber.

Budgetary policy, taxes, housing policy, health, political and social reform – all are now urgent agenda items.

They need the political processes to work at a higher level than mere soundbites and sloganeering.