Opinion

Stormont must show it has learned from its pandemic failings – The Irish News view

The public is entitled to know what plans are in place if a new virus strikes

Members of Northern Ireland Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice stand together holding images of their loved ones outside the Clayton Hotel in Belfast
Members of Northern Ireland Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice stand together holding images of their loved ones as the inquiry into the pandemic response heard evidence in Belfast earlier this year (Liam McBurney/PA)
By The Irish News

The fear of the unknown. The lockdowns. Children’s education upended as they were wrenched from the routine and support of school. The sick dying alone in hospital, the elderly isolated in nursing homes. Social distancing. ‘Claps for carers’ as the health service was stretched beyond breaking point. Families separated and the economy tanked…

The coronavirus pandemic experience was so dreadful that today, more than two years after the last Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, it is tempting to pretend the whole thing never happened.

But that would be a huge mistake. It is essential that the lessons of the pandemic are learned and acted upon. If we are to be afflicted by another new and deadly virus in the future - which scientists have warned is a distinct possibility - then we must be prepared.

The weighty task of reviewing the UK’s response to Covid-19 has fallen to Baroness Heather Hallett, who held evidence sessions in Belfast in May. At that stage, the patient questioning of our politicians, civil servants and others by inquiry counsel, Belfast-born Clair Dobbin KC, made it apparent just how poorly served we had been by our system of government.

That conclusion has been firmly reinforced in the Covid inquiry’s first official report, published this week. Baroness Hallett said that citizens of all parts of the UK had been failed through the authorities’ lack of preparation for a global pandemic. She paints a picture of how a dangerous complacency had set in, with the government believing that the UK was in fact among the best placed to deal with a pandemic.

That was a deadly delusion, as we tragically know. The report makes specific reference to how the 2017-2020 suspension of power-sharing, when Sinn Féin pulled out of the executive in a dispute with the DUP over the RHI fiasco and Irish language legislation, had exacerbated the failures in preparing for a pandemic.

If we are to be afflicted by another new and deadly virus in the future – which scientists have warned is a distinct possibility – then we must be prepared

Pandemic victims’ groups deserve enormous credit for not allowing these issues to slip into institutional amnesia. Brenda Doherty of Northern Ireland Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice was in London on Thursday for the report launch. Her mother, Ruth Burke (82), was the first woman to die from Covid-19 in Northern Ireland in March 2020 after contracting the virus in hospital.

“The report clearly shows we were failed, that the government let us down and left us extremely vulnerable,” she says.

The inquiry will run for another two years, but Baroness Hallett is clear that planning for a future pandemic needs to start now.

To aid public confidence, it would be helpful if Stormont could share details of its latest preparations as soon as possible.