All-Ireland forum would have been 'extremely helpful' in preparedness for pandemic - union boss

• Our health reporter Deborah McAleese has more.

A civic forum between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland would have been “extremely helpful” in Northern Ireland’s preparedness for the Covid pandemic, a trade union leader has said.

Gerry Murphy, the assistant general secretary of Irish Congress of Trade Unions told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry in London: “First of all, I do believe that an all-Ireland civic forum would be extremely helpful, or would have been extremely helpful in preparing for a pandemic.

“There were, and there are indeed, existing areas of co-operation in the area of health, on an all-island basis … paediatric cancer services being one example,” Mr Murphy added.

The first module of the inquiry is focusing on the UK’s preparedness for the pandemic, and Mr Murphy was giving evidence on behalf of the organisation which represents 800,000 people across the island of Ireland, including 200,000 in Northern Ireland.

He added: “The Strand 2 elements of the Good Friday Agreement provide an architecture which will allow for the building of provision on an all-island basis, all of which would have been extremely helpful.”

Mr Murphy also said that attempts to co-ordinate the pandemic response between Northern Ireland and the Republic were not always possible.

“As the pandemic unfolded, there were what we describe as sporadic attempts to align, if you like, the response in the two jurisdictions, that wasn’t entirely possible,” he said,

“There are different stages of lockdown or different stages of restriction, or different processes at play at different times, and indeed, different responses to data being produced as well.”

He added: “The provision of such a forum would be extremely helpful and possibly one of the learnings that we may take from this.”

When asked how trade unions across the border could co-operate, Mr Murphy said healthcare was an area where this was increasing post-Covid.

He said: “Pre-pandemic, there wasn’t any work to any significant degree and then that area, over the course of the pandemic and post-pandemic, has improved.

“We’re now about to see for example, the unfolding of a fairly significant health project involving Unison and Forsa, which is the second largest public service trade union in the Republic of Ireland.

“So there definitely is scope for the trade unions to move into that space.

“It isn’t possible or it wasn’t possible pre-pandemic but I think we’ve all learned that close co-operation has to be something that we factor into how we prepare for civil emergencies or pandemic in the future.”

Mr Murphy also told the inquiry that had trade unions been able to consult with the Executive on the situation facing health-care workers on the front lines of the pandemic, then the level of preparedness would have been more apparent.

He said: “I think it might have been extremely helpful to the Northern Ireland Executive to have had the insight from people on the ground who are providing the services directly, and I don’t mean those managing, I mean, at the levels below that.

“It would have been extremely helpful. For example, PPE was mentioned earlier, I think the absence of PPE would have become apparent much quicker, had the actual workforce been involved in the preparing for the pandemic.”

The inquiry will continue, hearing evidence on Tuesday from families in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones during the pandemic.

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