Let us welcome with gratitude army help in Northern Ireland’s Covid response

The armed forces are always there in an emergency.

Aside from their essential duties defending our seas and nation in war, the men and women in uniform perform many other roles in society.

They helped save Northern Ireland from civil war in the Troubles (for which they get precious little thanks).

Their skills are used in disaster zones overseas.

They help out domestically during floods and other crises.

They are called upon in situations such as the firefighters strike of 2002 (when brave, low paid military recruits provided emergency cover in primitive Green Goddesses).

And they have ,as you would expect, performed an array of roles during the Covid pandemic. Rolling up their sleeves as ever, they used their discipline and organisational skills to help increase testing. Not it is administering vaccines.

Yet the use of the army in Northern Ireland has been a source of near embarrassment since the March lockdown. It has, it seems, become a matter of negotiation, because republicans, who want NI to fail, do not want them about the place.

The appropriate reaction to this would be: tough. The army are coming in to help whether you like it or not.

Last year, Robin Swann, the health minister, said that he would accept any help he could get if the situation demanded it, either the British army or the Irish army.

He was trying to be diplomatic in the face of such tricky ministerial colleagues as Sinn Fein. But, for all that, there must be no question of the use of the army in sovereign UK territory being a matter of negotiation, or joint role for the Irish army. The government in London has done more than enough to damage the Union with its Irish Sea border.

Not only should the army’s input be sought, we should always accept their help in such situations in NI.

Meanwhile, London should be ensuring that devolved governments can only at first call on the UK armed services in relevant emergencies, and indeed that they never get the power to block such a role, or make it contingent on the input of other armed forces.

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