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Cross-border health cooperation ‘natural’ and ‘logical’
With few exceptions, cross-border health collaboration has been “minimalist and often project specific”, says Ulster University’s Deirdre Heenan, who argues that Covid-19 cooperation has not extended beyond “window dressing”. From the earliest days of Covid-19 in Ireland, the absence of an all-island approach to dealing with this global emergency has been identified as a critical issue. We share a single island, are one epidemiological unit, and therefore cross border cooperation is not only natural, it’s logical. Throughout the last year, it has been asserted ad nauseam that ‘this virus doesn’t respect borders’ and ‘the disease does not discriminate’, but has this led to significant policy action? Despite the broad acceptance that thinking in terms of narrow political allegiances or identities would only prolong this crisis and deepen the impact on every community, to date collaboration has been extremely limited. Both governments have continued to plough their own furrow with little more
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than lip service paid to working collectively to fight this common scourge. In March 2020, former First Minister Arlene Foster slammed the Taoiseach for lack of cooperation with Stormont over Coronavirus. She claimed that he did not brief the Northern Executive before announcing school closures and Belfast officials learnt of the new regulations through the media. The Irish Government pointed the finger of blame at the Executive, suggesting some were more interested in slavishly replicating Westminster policy, rather than developing a bespoke all-island response. In April 2020, the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the North and the South was broadly welcomed and viewed as a significant step in the right direction. In
the face of this existential threat, it appeared that constitutional politics would rightly play second fiddle to public health considerations. The MoU acknowledged a compelling case for strong cooperation, including information-sharing and, where appropriate, a common approach, but at best it has made a marginal difference. Practically, it has translated to regular Zoom calls between the Chief Medical Officers and some sharing of data. Window dressing and a far cry from the integrated, single-epidemiological coherent response to Foot and Mouth Disease (affecting livestock). Substantial differences in regulations, restrictions, data analysis and messaging pose practical challenges, cause confusion and are completely illogical on an island the size of Ireland.
