“It Shall Be The Duty Of The Republic To Safeguard The Health Of The People”
The 1919 Democratic Programme of the first Dáil Éireann identified the key responsibilities of the new Irish Republic. In reference to older citizens it stated that,
“The Irish Republic fully realises the necessity of abolishing the present odious, degrading and foreign Poor Law System, substituting therefor a sympathetic native scheme for the care of the Nation's aged and infirm, who shall not be regarded as a burden, but rather entitled to the Nation's gratitude and consideration.”
The language and political intent of the assembled TDs could not have been clearer. The new Republic was going to treat older people not as units of economic production that had outlived their usefulness, but as equal citizens entitled to dignity, respect and care befitting a lifetime contribution to society.
The Democratic Programme went on to state that the new Republic was also explicitly tasked with protecting the health of the people,
“Likewise it shall be the duty of the Republic to take such measures as will safeguard the health of the people and ensure the physical as well as the moral well-being of the Nation.”
The contrast between the language of the Democratic Programme and the reality of British rule in Ireland was stark. For centuries the British ruling class had deemed Irish lives to be expendable in the pursuit of profit and the military, political, social, cultural and economic conquest of Ireland.
The idea that the state would now take responsibility for the health of the Nation was a direct challenge to the laissez-faire capitalist ideology that defined British rule in Ireland in the decades preceding the establishment of Dáil Éireann.
The language and ideas contained within the Programme were revolutionary, but they were not new. They echoed those contained in another seminal Irish republican document, the 1867 Proclamation of the Irish Republic, which stated that,
“All men are born with equal rights, and in associating to protect one another and share public burdens, justice demands that such associations should rest upon a basis which maintains equality instead of destroying it.”
The concept of citizens protecting each other and sharing public burdens, like healthcare, was an anathema to a capitalist system based on individualism and market-based survival of the fittest.
Charles Edward Trevelyan’s fanatical belief in laissez-faire economics contributed to the deaths of at least one million Irish people.
The 1867 Proclamation was drafted in the aftermath of the Great Genocide of the 1840s, when the arrival of a new disease, in the form of potato blight, was exploited for economic gain. Instead of providing food relief to counter the effect of potato blight, the capitalist class in conjunction with the British government cleared the land of people, replacing them with livestock that was more profitable and less rebellious. The 1867 Proclamation described it as follows,
“We have suffered centuries of outrage, enforced poverty, and bitter misery. Our rights and liberties have been trampled on by an alien aristocracy, who treating us as foes, usurped our lands, and drew away from our unfortunate country all material riches. The real owners of the soil were removed to make room for cattle, and driven across the ocean to seek the means of living…”
Those who demanded food aid for starving Irish families in the 1840s were told that such relief would undermine the market place and damage the economy. The infamous Charles Edward Trevelyan justified his murderous approach by blending free-market capitalism with religion when he wrote that “…the judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson.”
According to Trevelyan, death from starvation and disease was a “mechanism for reducing surplus population”. The “surplus population” being millions of Irish people that had limited or no economic value to British capitalism.
Through deliberate and calculated inaction, the British government escalated a dangerous natural calamity into full-blown genocide. The lives of countless Irish people were snuffed out to protect the markets, the ruling class and the political status quo.
The cause of The Great Genocide was not potato blight, but the response of British capitalism to it.
Of course, the genocide of the 1840s served as a driver for the establishment of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1858, the key organisation behind the 1867 and 1916 Risings.
No surprise then that the 1867 Proclamation and the 1919 Democratic Programme were so explicit in their commitment to replace individualist competition with collective cooperation that would benefit the people at large. No longer would a section of the Irish Nation be deemed a surplus that could be sacrificed to protect markets and capitalist wealth.
No surprise either that right-wing economists, academics, politicians, media outlets and business owners around the world are calling for a minimalist state and collective response to Covid-19 today. In doing so they are re-hashing the same tired arguments that right-wingers have made from Trevelyan to Thatcher.
For them the lives of the elderly and other high-risk groups are surplus to requirement, a price worth paying to get back to capitalism as usual.
In the United States, Brazil and Britain, nationalist, right-wing leaders downplayed the threat posed by Covid-19 and resisted introducing measures to counter the spread of the virus. These countries now have the three highest absolute death tolls in the world with over 200,000 dead and no sign of the virus being brought under control.
In March, Bolsonaro dismissed Covid-19 as a ‘a little flu or the sniffles’. Now at least 40,000 Brazilians are dead, with the virus running out of control across the country.
In Ireland too, the usual suspects have been screaming for a return to capitalism as normal, with nominal concern about the health implications for workers, customers or the wider population. Employer organisations such as IBEC, ISME and the CIF have pursued a multi-tracked strategy of demanding an end to public health measures, prophesying economic meltdown and lobbying for state aid for their members.
Long-time apologists for exploitation like Michael O’Leary, Pat McDonagh and Ivan Yates have been similarly undermining public health measures, attacking Covid payments to workers and pushing for individual responsibility for infection control.
As Irish republicans have done for more than two centuries, Éirígí For A New Republic believes that it is the primary duty of the state to protect the health and lives of the citizenry; that the state has a particular duty of care to protect the elderly and the infirm; that the desire for private profit must always be subordinate to the common good.
All available information suggests that Covid-19 presents a limited threat to the young and the healthy and a very significant threat to those who are older and otherwise in high risk groups . The only appropriate response to such a disease is an-Ireland strategy to systemically eradicate it from the island. Anything less would constitute a betrayal of the ‘aged and infirm’ and of core republican values.