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Brexit’s back. Well, actually, it never went away. But Brexit returns to the front page today following the announcement by the British government yesterday that it would unilaterally change Northern Ireland’s special arrangements.
London said it would extend the “grace period”, previously agreed with the EU to last from January to the end of this month, during which the requirement for checks on certain goods entering the North from Britain do not apply.
After the move was flagged by Northern Secretary Brandon Lewis in the House of Commons yesterday, the British government confirmed last night it would extend the grace period until October.
The EU is furious, and has indicated it will take legal action.
It’s our lead story today.
Dublin is not happy either. Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney and Taoiseach Micheál Martin both issued statements expressing their condemnation of the move. Government Buildings confirmed British prime minister Boris Johnson did not mention this was coming during the phone conversation between the two men on Tuesday.
But nor does Dublin want tension over the arrangements to escalate in the North, either. It would not object to an extension of the grace period as the two sides thrash out how the protocol arrangements are going to work.
Since early in the Brexit negotiations, Dublin has been walking a tightrope between its overriding loyalty and attachment to the EU’s single market, and its desire for minimum disruption to the North. It will continue to do so, but that may get harder.
There were also exchanges on the issue at Stormont.
Our lead editorial reflects on the tensions rising in the North.
Vaccination nation
TDs in the Government parties – as well as family doctors, as our front page reports – are getting jumpy about the pace of the vaccines rollout, with several reporting complaints at the parliamentary party meetings last night. The Taoiseach told his TDs he had spoken to the HSE chief executive Paul Reid about it – an indication that concern is not limited to the backbenches.
Some Ministers reckon the hiccups in the programme – undershooting weekly targets, vaccines not turning up in some places, etc – are just margin-of-error stuff in a massive programme; others wonder whether the HSE is going to be able to vastly accelerate the rate of jabbing when it is getting a million shots a month.
Judging by the fact the Taoiseach is letting it be known he has spoken to Reid about it, the concern goes up to the highest level. As well it might – nothing is more important for the fate of the Government.
The report from the parliamentary party meetings is here.
Elsewhere at the Fine Gael meeting, Leo Varadkar was strongly critical of Green Party TD Patrick Costello who is taking a legal challenge against the ratification of the EU-Canada free trade deal – the deal his party leader is committed to supporting. There will be trouble on this yet.
Meanwhile, in other Covid news, Carl O’Brien says universities have little power to deal with off-campus breaches of Covid regulations
Illegal adoptions
The topic of illegal adoptions was raised in the Dáil yesterday in advance of the screening of an RTÉ documentary last night (reviewed here) and is likely to be again today.
Two new Bills are on the way to give adopted people the right to their own birth certs. What rights do they currently have?
Best reads
Miriam Lord on a testing day for Fianna Fáil.
Straw-in-the-wind decision by UCC.
Today is the day that some Trump supporters believe he will be sworn in as the real president. Bonkers? Yes. But they’re taking it sufficiently seriously in Washington to cancel today’s sitting of Congress.
Kitty Holland on a social programme that works but is under threat.
Playbook
Two important pieces of Government legislation on the Dáil agenda today: the Land Development Agency Bill and the Public Sector Pay Bill. There’s Leaders’ Questions at noon, and Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly will be in for questions and answers on the vaccine programme in the afternoon. That could be lively.
And then statements in the Dáil in the evening on the impact of Covid-19 on women, described in the Dáil schedule as being for international women’s day, though that falls next Monday.
It is often observed the greater burden of Covid is falling on women, although, actually, global figures tend to show the mortality rate is higher among men. Full Dáil schedule is here.