One of the most fascinating things to have happened in Ireland, as the pandemic draws towards a close, is how Irish politicians have formally given up even the pretence that they are making the decisions, any longer. This week, they have taken to just coming right out with the truth: That the decisions are taken by NPHET, and then ratified by the cabinet.
Yesterday, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, said the following. It is not hard to understand it:
To that end: he says conversations are taking place in Government about relaxing public health restrictions “as quickly as we can” without risking progress already made, telling me @VirginMediaNews restrictions will be ended “the moment the public health rationale goes for them”
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) January 18, 2022
“The minute the public health rationale goes for them” is a very clear statement. It implies an urgency, and a desire to rid the nation of the remaining restrictions. But it also has a caveat; that being that none of this can happen until the “public health rationale” for restrictions no longer exists. And who decides that? Not the Government, but NPHET.
Indeed, the sequence of events we are told to expect this week is very clear: NPHET will meet on Thursday. It has been well briefed in advance that some easing of restrictions – but not their abolition – will be the recommendation. Government will then implement this on Friday, and we can all expect the good news to be that pubs, this weekend, will open a little bit longer. But note here who is making the decisions: It is not, truly, Government. They will be doing what NPHET tell them that they can do. Not, necessarily, what they want to do.
Many acres of words have been written, and it bears no point to repeat them here, about the perceived undue influence of NPHET on Irish policy. They do not actually need to be repeated, because it is no longer an arguable point: Government itself admits, openly, and without any shame, that it is not the body calling the shots. It is actually eager for this to be known.
This should prompt significant political soul searching, but it will not. It will not because of a broader Irish political culture problem, which is this: Irish politicians do not like making decisions or being responsible for things. We elect them, and they proceed, time and time again, to create structures which remove themselves from the decision-making process.
Consider, for example, Ireland’s county manager system: We elect county councillors, but those councillors have no executive power. The running of an Irish council is left in the hands of an unelected county manager, and the purpose of the council is to ratify those decisions which need to be ratified, and to petition the county manager and his or her officials on matters which rest with the executive. Talk of elected mayors, for example, makes politicians very nervous: An elected mayor would have to make decisions, and could be blamed for them. Isn’t it astonishing? Talk about creating a job for politicians which could actually, potentially, change things, and they slink, as quietly as they can, for the hills.
The same is true of the HSE: The HSE exists, primarily, as an organisation to absorb blame. That is its purpose. Its official purpose, of course, is to manage the health service. But the official purpose, and the real purpose, are different: We elect a Government, after all, to manage the health service. And the Government, by creating the HSE, has an excuse every time something goes wrong. They can say “The HSE is in bad need of reform”.
NPHET is the latest in a long line of such bodies. An Irish politician, no matter how high he or she rises, is never happier than when they are “calling” for things. Witness even Willie O’Dea: The Fianna Fáil TD this week “called” for an end to all restrictions. That suits him down to the ground: He gets to be on the right side, without having to take any responsibility at all. NPHET get the blame, and nobody can vote them out of office anyway.
The end result of this culture is a very conservative state, in the literal, not ideological, sense of that word. The outsized power of unelected bodies and institutions does produce stability, but it also inhibits any radical action to address systemic problems. Our political system is designed, from the ground up, to take anybody with radical ideas who wants to govern, and smash them into submission against the rocks of the bureaucracy, and teach them to focus on the things that they can actually achieve, which usually amount to fixing potholes, and establishing commissions to look into things and produce reports. It is about the only political system on earth in which Micheál Martin – a life-long avoider of decisions and commissioner of reports – could rise to the very top.
Yes, the Government could ignore NPHET, on paper. But why would they? Already, even amongst anti-lockdowners, more anger is reserved for Dr. Holohan and his team than is ever directed against the politicians responsible for acting as NPHET’s stenographers. The system is working as designed: Politicians can nod sympathetically, and call for things, and blame the big bad public health officials for the impasse.
The anger here should be directed at Donnelly, and the Government: They have, consciously, and as a matter of procedure, made themselves prisoner of NPHET. They have abdicated, deliberately, their duty to make decisions on behalf of the people, and handed them over to an unelected person. And they are not even trying to hide that fact.
It is no wonder, in Ireland, that we have the long standing problems in various sectors that we do. This is no way to run a country.