Opinion

Allison Morris: United front from political leaders as roadmap announced

First Minister Arlene Foster during the daily media broadcast in the Long Gallery at Parliament Buildings on Tuesday.
First Minister Arlene Foster during the daily media broadcast in the Long Gallery at Parliament Buildings on Tuesday. First Minister Arlene Foster during the daily media broadcast in the Long Gallery at Parliament Buildings on Tuesday.

IT was a show of political unity not seen since the coronavirus crisis began.

As Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill took to the podium to discuss their roadmap for the slow journey out of lockdown, there was not a single hint of the political unrest that was so evident at the start of this pandemic.

Under questioning from the media, both political leaders were keen to stress this was a plan bespoke to the north, one that took notice but not orders from either London or Dublin.

While this is still a fledgling administration, forced together by public frustration in January, it seems to have gelled in recent weeks with one common purpose.

Whether the unity is public-facing to mask internal fractures remains to be seen, but for now it was a reading of the mood music that called for joined-up political leadership to calm growing anxiety.

The only major criticism of the plan came from the SDLP for not committing to timeframes for taking action.

But the message from the top tier of the Executive was that science and not calendar dates would drive the pace of movement out of lockdown.

The R rate, the measure of how the virus is spread, must be below 0.5 before people can start to slowly regain some of the freedoms lost due to strict measures aimed at driving infection down over the last two months.

The number is currently 0.79 in Northern Ireland, a figure inflated by the ongoing crisis in elderly care where clusters of coronavirus cases have caused tragic loss.

And so all eyes will now turn to health minister Robin Swann to properly tackle the situation in care homes.

The redirection of NHS workers to what are privately-run companies to help with care and infection control and a clamp down on nomadic agency staff moving from one home to another without testing are all key priorities.

While the exit plan is slower than some would like, it at least gives a direction of travel. Each stage requires more detail for business, childcare providers and in terms of regulations and legalities.

Allowing groups of 4-6 not from the same household to meet will give comfort to the isolated and those elderly relatives who have been in a more severe form of lockdown.

However, the roadmap does not give answers as to how tens of thousands of jobs will be saved or created, with the government's furlough scheme hiding the true cost of the lockdown.

We now have some answers but there are many more questions yet to be answered over the coming weeks and months.