Tommy McKearney highlights the position of the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum in response to Covid-19.

The Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, like many groups and individuals, has watched Covid-19 take a heavy toll on the lives of working people around the country. The emergence and global spread of this virus has brought home to many people the volatile nature of the world we live in, and exposed the fragile nature of health services in Ireland. It has also opened up conversations about how we should deal with it and how to learn for future viruses and also a future Ireland should we have.

Decades of underfunding, privatisation and commercialisation of health services have weakened and undermined the public health services that people need and have access to. The creation of a two-tier health system in the two parts of Ireland has contributed to further inequality within society.

Covid-19 has also exposed outmoded thinking about how we should deal with major social and political questions, including the provision of health services to our people, from Derry to Kerry. As many leading medical experts have pointed out, it makes no sense, and is dangerous to public health, to have two separate strategies for fighting Covid-19 and two poorly funded health services where one is so badly needed.

We believe that an all-Ireland, universally accessible, free public health system would be in the best interests of the citizens. It would go a long way to ending inequality in health care. We must maximise the use of medical expertise throughout the whole country. We need to remove the profit motive out of health services, from hospitals to care homes for the elderly.

Outmoded thinking in relation to creating a single health service for all our people will endanger the present and future generations. We need to plan for the future, not to be locked in the past.

Covid-19 is not the first virus, nor will it be the last, that will have an impact on our people. The continuing destruction of the global environment is opening up new pathways for such diseases to become more regular challenges, both globally and nationally, to people’s health and the provision of health care.

Working people paid for the last crisis in lost jobs, savage cuts in wages and services, homelessness, and precarious work. During the present health crisis working people have again borne an unequal burden, with many lives lost.

Working people should not pay for this new and emerging economic crisis. We have had enough.


Tommy McKearney is a left wing activist and author of The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament.



Coronavirus ➤ A Lesson For Us All

Tommy McKearney highlights the position of the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum in response to Covid-19.

The Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, like many groups and individuals, has watched Covid-19 take a heavy toll on the lives of working people around the country. The emergence and global spread of this virus has brought home to many people the volatile nature of the world we live in, and exposed the fragile nature of health services in Ireland. It has also opened up conversations about how we should deal with it and how to learn for future viruses and also a future Ireland should we have.

Decades of underfunding, privatisation and commercialisation of health services have weakened and undermined the public health services that people need and have access to. The creation of a two-tier health system in the two parts of Ireland has contributed to further inequality within society.

Covid-19 has also exposed outmoded thinking about how we should deal with major social and political questions, including the provision of health services to our people, from Derry to Kerry. As many leading medical experts have pointed out, it makes no sense, and is dangerous to public health, to have two separate strategies for fighting Covid-19 and two poorly funded health services where one is so badly needed.

We believe that an all-Ireland, universally accessible, free public health system would be in the best interests of the citizens. It would go a long way to ending inequality in health care. We must maximise the use of medical expertise throughout the whole country. We need to remove the profit motive out of health services, from hospitals to care homes for the elderly.

Outmoded thinking in relation to creating a single health service for all our people will endanger the present and future generations. We need to plan for the future, not to be locked in the past.

Covid-19 is not the first virus, nor will it be the last, that will have an impact on our people. The continuing destruction of the global environment is opening up new pathways for such diseases to become more regular challenges, both globally and nationally, to people’s health and the provision of health care.

Working people paid for the last crisis in lost jobs, savage cuts in wages and services, homelessness, and precarious work. During the present health crisis working people have again borne an unequal burden, with many lives lost.

Working people should not pay for this new and emerging economic crisis. We have had enough.


Tommy McKearney is a left wing activist and author of The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament.



3 comments:

  1. Of course working people will pay. We'll pay through higher taxes, lower wages, cuts in benefits, cuts in services etc. It became apparent over a month ago that if you were under sixty five, no respiratory problems the chances of death were minimal. The lockdown was posturing to a degree in my opinion. They knew the let it spread, the then overreacted to look concerned. Most heads of state should loss their position, they won't though that's not how politics works. They failed drastically. They couldn't protect those who needed it and exasperated the coming recession which will cause far more damage.
    The town where I live forty thousand or so, Has lost nine people to drugs during this lockdown, that I know about, most in twenties, all under forty. The surge in unemployment will make these problems way worse. Scotland's still officially in lockdown even though most have ignored it for the last month. It seems to me that Jimmy Krankie (kudos to the unionists for that nickname,absolute double) is playing partisan politics to deflect her failings, especially in care homes, on which she attacked the Tories then turns out her numbers are just as bad.
    Dr Fauci, says now extended lockdown is now harmful, really? Thank's for that. I still can't understand why we couldn't have protected those who needed it and allowed others choice. The panic shown by people who were in no position to panic was depressing, a little embarrassing also.

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  2. The Kung flu is perfect cover for the 'economic crisis'..........the tin foil hat wearers aka the face mask wearers will obediently pick up the tab with no questions asked.

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  3. Test, contact and trace should have been the mantra from the start. That is how Taiwan successfully dealt with it from the start unlike ite large and predatory neighbour. New Zdealand's lockdown lasted for six weeks, everyone was willing to take thr medicine and now they are breating freedom again.

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