Irish Examiner view: North's covid inquiry could provide a template
British Labour Party leader Keir Starmer's chief of staff Sue Gray leaving the Clayton Hotel in Belfast yesterday after giving evidence to the covid inquiry. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA
Ms Gray is currently Labour leader Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, but before that, she was the head of Stormont’s department of finance between 2018 and 2021.
Observers of British politics will be familiar with her previous experience with public investigations — she led the examination of the Westminster Partygate scandal, which ultimately contributed to the departure of Boris Johnson as prime minister in 2022.
Accordingly, it was well worth paying attention to her contribution to the inquiry: Gray was not notably enthusiastic about the performance of Northern Ireland’s civil service during the pandemic — “reactive rather than proactive” was her description — and pointed to “a culture issue about working in silos” in the organisation.
The latter point in particular is worth considering in terms of our own response to the pandemic.
If we had a similar inquiry would it produce the kind of headlines we saw earlier this week, however?
Northern Ireland’s first minister Michelle O’Neill apologised at the inquiry for attending a large-scale funeral during the lockdown, for instance.
Then deputy first minister, she and a number of Sinn Féin ministers attended the funeral of senior republican Bobby Storey in west Belfast in June 2020. This week’s apology was a significant U-turn, given O’Neill once said she would “never apologise for attending the funeral of my friend”.
Arlene Foster, first minister during the pandemic, was defensive about her administration’s performance at the inquiry, though she was also reminded of her party colleague Edwin Poots’s extraordinary claim that covid transmission was far higher in nationalist areas than in unionist areas. This was “not a view I shared”, said Ms Foster.
These sketches from the theatre of accountability might make for entertaining viewing, but the inquiry’s initial report, due this summer, is likely to be far more substantive.
As a template for Ireland’s covid inquiry, it looks a good model to follow.
Three bombs went off on the streets of the capital and another in Monaghan Town, killing 33 people outright. Some accounts of the atrocities add two more to the death toll: One of those killed was a pregnant woman whose unborn child also died, while another pregnant woman who survived the bombing had a stillborn child. A bus strike in Dublin meant there were more people than usual on the streets of the capital at rush hour, when the bombs went off.
The Dublin-Monaghan bombings remain a sensitive topic even now for a variety of reasons. The Barron Report into the bombings, which was published in 2003, was critical of the gardaĂ for their handling of the case, and of the government at the time for its lack of concern about the bombings.
There has long been a suspicion that the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist terrorist group which would eventually claim responsibility for the atrocities, could only have had the capability to carry out the bombings with the aid of the British security forces. A 1993 Yorkshire Television documentary made strong allegations of such collusion.
No one has ever been charged with the killings, and the possibility of justice seems more remote than ever now. Not just because the events in question occurred half a century ago, but because the Legacy Act introduced by the British government works directly to shut down criminal inquiries, inquests, and civil cases into killings carried out during the Troubles.
There has been a universal welcome for the vindication of the families of those killed in the Stardust tragedy, even though it took over 40 years to reach that vindication. The families of those killed in Dublin and Monaghan have waited even longer for justice, and they deserve the support of all in achieving that justice.
It is not so long ago since Irish motorists were rubbing their eyes at billboards dotted around the country which were enticing young Irish people to go and work in Australia. Those advertisements contribute to the general notion that Irish healthcare workers, for instance, are travelling Down Under in their thousands.
Readers may not have noticed, however, that Irish people may soon have a different destination available to them. Two US Congressmen have reintroduced bipartisan legislation which aims to add Ireland to the E-3 visa programme. If successful, this legislative change would make thousands of US work visas available to Irish applicants.
Ironically, the E-3 visa programme was introduced originally to facilitate Australian citizens wishing to work in America but, because all of the available visas are not being taken up, it is now proposed to offer the unused visas to Irish citizens. There are limitations involved — these visas would be limited to Irish professionals visiting the US to perform services in “specialty occupations” and to those with a confirmed job from a US employer.
It is always encouraging to see opportunities being made available to Irish people, but could this become a problem? Fears have been expressed in the past about the number of medical professionals leaving these shores for Australia. Are we now to experience a brain drain in other fields — this time to America?
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