Ireland most stringent Covid restrictions in EU since January: Way out of lockdown has to keep on prioritising children’s education

 

Stephan Köppe, UCD School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice 

Robert Cazaciuc, UCD College of Social Sciences and Law

 

Inrtroduction

Despite the vaccine rollout, governments across the globe still grapple with containing the Covid infections, keeping hospitalisations down and preventing a surge in fatalities. Since last spring, a group of researchers and volunteers, led by Oxford University, have tracked the multiple government restrictions to citizens, businesses and society at large in almost every part of the world. Last week we have launched the UCD Covid Compared dashboard – in short UCD CoCo – to easily access the underlying data of these Covid policy responses and make the tremendous work of the Oxford team more accessible to everyone through simple colour-coded tables and graphs.

 

Table 1: Ten most stringent countries in Europe since March 2020

 

Following the third lockdown and opening up of Ireland in April, the obvious question is how strict were Ireland’s rules compared to other EU countries? Out of 42 countries, Ireland had the 3rd most stringent restrictions since the beginning of the pandemic. Only Italy and the UK had enacted tougher rules since March 2020. Broken down by some key indicators, Ireland had closed workplaces and businesses much longer and tougher than any other European country. Similarly, on public transport restrictions Ireland is within the top 5 and for stay-at-home requirements and school closures within the top 10. Most noticeable is that Ireland’s rules on international travel were very lax throughout 2020 and were only tightened after the Christmas travel debacle (Figure 1).

 

Figure 1: Lax international travel restrictions compared to EU28

 

Toughest Lockdown in First Quarter of 2021

Between January and March this year, Ireland had the toughest restrictions in place across Europe. Of course, Ireland also faced the worst incidence rate during that time and the health system was at the brink of collapse. It is still too early to fully assess if these tight rules have contributed to the overall low mortality rate. In the middle of a pandemic it is very hard for social scientists to evaluate which of the policy measures has contributed to keep the infection rate down and how other factors outside of the control of governments have mitigated the mortality rate. It has been argued that the relative young age profile of the Irish population might have kept the mortality rate down, despite the virus circulating relatively freely in December. On the other hand the returning Irish diaspora, who was desperate to visit loved ones over Christmas, might have fuelled the surge of the virus back then more than in other countries. Despite the overall tight the restrictions, the lax international travel rules might have been the weak link in our Covid defences.

 

While all restrictions were escalated quickly to their maximum in January, our UCD CoCo Dashboard also reveals how the coalition emphasised to reopen schools quickly this time, compared to relative late reopening of creches and schools in the first wave (Figure 2). While having enacted the maximum restrictions in other areas of society, the educational progress of children – and mental health of working parents – had been rightly prioritised. However, Ireland continued to score very weakly on travel restrictions, testing policies and contract tracing during the third lockdown. These apparent flaws in health service related indicators may contribute to the stubbornly high case rate across the country, despite shutting down the country with relative blunt containment instruments.

 

Figure 2: Ireland reopens schools late in first wave, but prioritises return to schools in third lockdown compared to EU28

 

In the Dark about Enforcement 

Although UCD CoCo reveals that Ireland is among the most stringent rule makers, we cannot assess its enforcement. For instance, Ireland had a very poor record in enforcing the anyway permissive quarantine and travel restrictions. Despite some high-profile media investigations that led to the resignation of the EU Commissioner Phil Hogan, this was the exception rather than the norm. Such public outcries highlighted the lack of enforcement across the country and everyone driving through check points played along the charade associated with tough rules and weak enforcement. We also do not know yet, if the tighter restrictions were more effective in keeping the population safe or the economy rolling.

 

Encourage Data-driven Public Debate

What we do know is that Ireland had – on paper – enacted one of the most stringent Covid policy responses in Europe. Whether it has paid off, we will only know once the majority of the population has been vaccinated and this is all over. Regardless of whether we cheer to the Irish success regarding managing the pandemic or drink down the poor government record with sorrow in a pub, at least we know then that it is over. However, the public debate on which policies were successful will continue for a bit longer. We hope that the UCD CoCo can contribute to this policy discussion by making the key data and indices more accessible for everyone.

 

 

Dr Stephan Köppe is Assistant Professor of Social Policy and Robert Cazaciuc is Master of Public Policy student at UCD.

 

Suggested citation: Stephan Köppe and Robert Cazaciuc ‘Ireland most stringent Covid restrictions in EU since January: Way out of lockdown has to keep on prioritising children’s education’ COVID-19 Law and Human Rights Observatory (6 May 2021) https://tcdlaw.blogspot.com/2021/05/ireland-most-stringent-covid.html