Ireland's Covid-19 approach has attracted international praise just as it comes under criticism at home: featured approvingly on the Dutch equivalent of SNL and @berlingske reporting it "transparent, predictable and an obvious inspiration for Denmark" irishtimes.com/news/health/ir…
You can behold the odd sight of a Merrion Street PDF broadcast to Dutch television viewers at 11:00 here as comedian presenter @arjenlubach criticises PM Mark Rutte and explains the Irish 5-phase system. "How nice would it be to make a super clear plan.."
Lubach perceptively hit the nail on the head by pointing out that the weakness in the system is that someone will still have to announce to the nation "we are going to stage X", and politicians won't want to. He suggested an automatic trigger if cases rise above set levels.
The words that stick with me, I heard about efforts to coordinate consistency between EU states. "It's not just that different governments want different things. You've got the finance ministry against the health ministry against the PM office... The technical term is a shitshow"
A few people took this piece to be an attempt by me to do the Irish government a favour or something, which... nope.
All European countries are peering at each other and making anxious comparisons. Ireland's plan looked good to some. The implementation on the other hand...
All European countries are peering at each other and making anxious comparisons. Ireland's plan looked good to some. The implementation on the other hand...
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