Contrary to public opinion here in Ireland, Irish officials were among the worst in handling the Covid-19 crisis in the EU/EEA area when compared with countries of a similar size.
Ireland has a population of about 4.5m and has reported 28,000 cases of Covid-19. Croatia, Finland, Slovakia and Denmark have similar populations but they have reported 10,000, 8,000, 4,000 and 17,000 cases respectively. So we have more cases than the first three countries combined. Bulgaria with a population of 7.5m has about 12,000 less cases.
Hungary has a population of nearly 10 million, almost double that of Ireland yet has only 6,000 cases of Covid-19, nearly five times less than Ireland. Many in the Irish media who have been very critical of Hungary in recent years should take heed.
Only Austria has a similar amount of cases as Ireland, but they have about another 4 million people so on a per capita basis, Ireland has twice as many. The only comparable country is Sweden which has double the population but three times as many cases.
So Ireland has only handled the crisis slightly better than a country that choose not to impose a lockdown. The measures implemented here in Ireland have failed. Right from the start, the idea of closing down our borders was rejected, a rejection of common sense - the virus cannot travel on the wind.
The focus on pubs and restaurants and lockdowns was misplaced, instead the focus should have been on nursing homes, meat factories and direct provision centres, most of which is a failure of our immigration and housing policies which results in large numbers of people living together in the same accommodation.
The long-standing cracks in our society that have become more and more pronounced in the post Gatt liberal low-tax policies of the past 25 years have created a Ponzi scheme based on modern day slavery to sustain our consumption focussed life styles, and we hadn't noticed that the chairs were gone until Covid stopped the music.
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