For months the Taoiseach and his Ministers justified the slow and careful pace of Ireland’s reopening by insisting it would ensure that, once lifted, restrictions would not be reimposed.

We might be going forward slowly, they argued, but we would not be going back.

On Tuesday those assurances look like all the other statements that have been subsequently disproved by Covid. Indeed, if there’s one thing we know about Covid by now, it’s that sooner or later the course of the pandemic will confound every prediction about its likely progress, every sigh of relief that a wave has receded, every measure introduced to combat it. Put that another way: beware when you think you’ve got the virus beaten because, pretty soon, it’s coming back at you.

Hospital Report

The acceleration in the fourth wave, and the consequent level of pressure on the hospital service, has been greeted with growing alarm in Government in the past week or so. In recent days, that alarm triggered a realisation that action by the Government would be required. Here we go again.

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However, Tuesday’s U-turn is a change in tactics, not in strategy. While it busts all those pledges not to reimpose restrictions, it does not change the fundamental strategic decision taken by the Government in the autumn: that the country would have to live with Covid.

Certain level

That meant living with a certain level of Covid cases, a certain level of hospital admissions, a certain level of people in ICU and – though nobody ever discussed it – a certain level of death from the disease.

Trouble is, nobody ever figured out what that certain level was. Now the Government is being forced to. If the levels of disease get much worse – or even continue in the medium term without reduction – then hospitals will become completely overwhelmed and further restrictions will be inevitable.

Some people in and around Government are pessimistic that this is where we are going: needing restrictions to protect the health service, but aware that there will be significant public resistance (and a lot of blame for the Government) if they go ahead.

Public opinion data commissioned by the Department of Health suggests that the public is becoming increasingly fearful of the current situation, as the numbers tend towards a majority in favour of further restrictions for the first time since last February. But the data has also shown there are lots of people fed up with restrictions. The question of further measures is likely to be divisive.

Tough it out

For now the Government’s strategy remains: tough it out and hope things get better. The measures announced this evening are, truth be told, light enough.

Will they be sufficient to stem the rise of the virus? Asked by The Irish Times on Tuesday night, the Taoiseach replied that the Government just did not know.

At a press conference, Micheál Martin robustly defended the decisions but struggled to explain the rationale for them and the Government’s expectations for the immediate future. It had the look of an administration scrambling around for a response.

All this is ominous politically. The third wave of the virus last December and January became wedged in people’s minds as the fault of the Government. A repeat now could destroy the credibility of the Coalition. This is a moment of acute political danger.

The fate of the Government will be of little concern to most people, though. They will just be wondering: what next?