Editorial: The great costs of the handling of Covid in Northern Ireland and the lessons to be learned from it

Some observers might think that the Covid pandemic showed how Stormont can work as an institution.

But it is just as easy to argue that the coronavirus highlighted profound problems both with devolution and with the specific system of enforced power-sharing.

It is true that lockdown was introduced shortly after the assembly had been restored and that in many respects it was good to have local politicians at the helm, including a health minister. However there was an at times unpleasant consensus in demanding ever more support from London, showing ingratitude for the enormous support that was delivered and supporting lockdown with barely any questions. The media focus was typically on supposed failures in the UK government, whose performance was mocked and often compared to that of the Republic of Ireland. Some Sinn Fein politicians made disgraceful claims about what it said were the malign motives of Boris Johnson’s ministers.

In the end there was little difference in outcomes between the UK and Ireland and indeed there is a case to be made that Sweden, which had the least severe lockdown in Europe, fared among the best nations when a concept called ‘total harm minimisation’ is considered – which means not just looking at deaths from Covid but deaths in other conditions that went undiagnosed, and the harm caused to the economy and people’s mental health etc.

It is worth recapping on all of the above elements to the handling of Covid in light of the Audit Office estimate that responding to Covid in NI cost a colossal £7.8 billion. Only a few nations on Earth could fund somewhere the size of NI as generously as the UK did. Auditors says lessons need to be learnt from the pandemic spending to ensure Stormont is well placed to deal with similar situations in future. They do.