In a meaty and well-researched piece SUBSET ask questions of the government’s response to the current pandemic and the consequences for the Irish people.

Collating a number of studies, research pieces and case studies of other country’s responses, SUBSET have provided a sharp piece calling for more accountability and transparency from the Irish government.

In the midst of a steady global escalation of the spread of the virus, SUBSET have questioned the predicted total case figures provided by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Suggesting inflated figures could be a measure to encourage social distancing or they could in fact be correct and reflect the backlog in the number of tests needed.

Moreover they noted that even at half the Taoiseach’s predicted cases Ireland would be in a terrifying predicament, one with worse cases per million than Italy 30 days after their first recorded case. Continuing to further highlight the government response SUBSET made their position clear that they believe government had not done enough.

“Given the limited powers by which an individual can respond to this crisis would the leaders of this country not be better off taking action to combat the virus instead of focusing overwhelmingly on personal responsibility?”

“However, in the cases detected so far, given that the measures taken cannot yet be expected to have an effect, it is their actions or lack thereof which is to blame. Including a lack of testing and long turnaround time, average of 3-4 days for patients outside of hospital, refusing to share the travel paths of confirmed cases, refusing to close the borders to travel, allowing the Italian fans to come to Dublin, not recommending self-isolation for everyone returning to the country.”

Continuing they reminded readers that many of the general population’s democratic rights had been removed and with next to no accountability for government decisions and lack of transparency in how decisions are made how are the Irish public supposed to observe government actions and their response during the crisis?

Following their conclusion they did however, offer an alternative approach and called for bold moves from the governement and suggested following the steps of Taiwan and South Korea who have had a more successful response to the crisis thus far than the likes of China and Italy.

You can read the full piece here.