Relations between Dublin and Brussels plummet to freezing over Article 16 fiasco

Last night Met Éireann forecast a severe weather event coming in from the east over the next five days.

Even if its Siberian snows out-monster the Beast from the East from a few years ago it won’t affect one whit the already glacial atmosphere that has settled on Ireland over the past five days.

Since Friday, when Brussels disastrously invoked the Article 16 of the Brexit protocol, the political temperature between Dublin and Brussels has plummeted to the freezing level Pfizer vaccines are stored at.

Almost a week later, the Government is still smarting, still resentful, at the stupidity of the decision.

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For Dublin, it’s as if somebody walked into the control room and went up to the big red button in the middle of the console. It had a skull and crossbones painted on it and said ‘nuclear option’. “Hmmm”, said somebody, “I wonder what this one does? Ah, no harm in giving it a try.”

Sure the EU withdrew the clause a few hours after it invoked it. But it was too late, as Micheál Martin told his parliamentary party last night. “The damage was done.”

We found out too that the Newtonian law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction sometimes applies to politics.

Unionists and the British government quickly stepped up to say they also wanted to invoke Article 16 – but from the other side, essentially to remove the barriers resulting from Brexit that have prevented free trade and movement across the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland.

It's likely the events of last week could lead to some renegotiation of the Northern Ireland protocol - to the advantage of Britain and the EU. As Denis Staunton and Freya McClements report, the British are looking for a "grace period exempting supermarkets from some checks, due to end on March 31st, to be extended at least until January 1st, 2023."

Britain is also looking for free movements on pets and less restrictions on the movement of chilled meats and parcels, and it is threatening to invoke Article 16 from its side if that is not achieved.

The situation is so self-inflicted for the EU, and it’s strange to hear the fan-club europhiles of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael being so suddenly harsh with their language.

Usually, witnessing Micheál Martin on Europe is like watching a magnolia wall being repainted in the same colour, but even he was unusually strident and fierce in his criticism. The EU Commission had blindsided Ireland and had caused "political mayhem", Mr Martin told the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party.

Later the same meeting heard harsh criticism of the commission and Ursula von der Leyen from Paul McAuliffe, Cormac Devlin and particularly from Timmy Dooley who described her as “out of her depth”.

There was even criticism of Ireland’s commissioner, Mairéad McGuinness. She said on This Week on Sunday she was unaware of the decision ahead of it being made. But Dooley wondered if any member of her cabinet was made aware, and if not why not?

The consequences are very messy and, politically, it has been a disaster, which has broken the very thin thread of trust that might have existed until now between the UK and EU on how Brexit will - and should - operate in Northern Ireland.

Injecting pace into the vaccine programme

Jennifer Bray and Jack Horgan-Jones had sight of the latest letter from Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan who confirmed the over-70s and those over 65 working in the health service would be administered the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which are seen to be more effective for those age groups.

The AstraZeneca vaccine will be used for other groups. It has meant the expert group chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith (busy man, as he is also chairing the Commission on the Future of Media) will have to rejig and reorder its rollout master plan.

There is some evidence the ambitious time scales for rollout that most EU countries set out will not be met as production difficulties in some factories will mean a lower delivery than had been promised. Also, other vaccines coming on line, including ones from Janssen/Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, have yet to be fully approved, though we are told that can happen quickly. All in all it might take longer than anticipated to reach the 80 per cent mark that is considered commensurate with herd immunity.

The UK has got so many things wrong in its response to the pandemic, but one thing it has got right has been vaccines. It expects to complete the vaccination of all over-70s in the UK by mid February. That’s around the time we in Ireland will be moving from other groups to over-70s.

As Denis Staunton reports, Boris Johnson's government is still under siege, with stratospherically high number of cases, deaths and hospitalisations. The UK variant has wreaked havoc there, although there is evidence the numbers are beginning to fall and have passed their peak.

That’s a little similar to here. The numbers of cases and hospitalisations have started to come down, but, like the UK, not as quickly as had been hoped. Martin told Fianna Fáil colleagues last night the UK variant, B117, contributed as much as 0.5 to the R rate, which is a helluva lot. He thinks that is why numbers in hospitals may remain at the 800 mark at the end of February.

When will children go back to school? Leo Varadkar was suggesting there might be some staggered returns in February if the indicators all went - and stayed - low. Martin seemed more cautious last night, pointing to an early March resumption. We will have to wait and see.

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Playbook

The big issues besides the topical issues of the day in the Dáil are mental health, and a Bill to merge the Irish Aviation Authority and the Commission for Aviation Regulation into the Irish Air Navigation Service. Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman will discuss childcare during the Covid-19 pandemic.

There is no Seanad, and committees are meeting in private today.