Calls for cross border cohesion on Covid-19

SNUB Northern Ireland Assembly ignores council request

Efforts by Cavan County Council to establish a line of communication with the Northern Ireland Assembly to ensure a balanced approached to tackling COVID-19 have been snubbed by the assembly.

While reviewing the correspondence of the local authority, Cllr Peter McVitty noted that two successive letters to Stormont had gone unanswered. Cavan County Council wrote to the assembly following the October and November meetings of the authority.

The local authority noted the reply from the Minister for State regarding the impact of the additional costs of COVID-19 on the finances of Cavan County Council. The matter had been championed by the Ballyconnell Fine Gael representative.

“It's the Northern Ireland Assembly,” Cllr McVitty said. “I proposed we arranged two meetings. One was to contact all the councils along the border and the second was to write to the First and Second Minister of Northern Ireland for the establishment of an all island plan to get the better of COVID-19.”

Cllr McVitty said the lack of cohesive action is hampering the efforts of the local authority and will have further implications down the line: “In Ballyconnell we may have one set of regulations, then a mile down the road there are another set. Workers who are working on the opposite side of the Border they living on are dealing with two different sets of regulations.

“We need to have an agreement. I asked the council to contact the Northern Ireland government back in October. There was no reply in November. I requested again in November and here we are a month later and again no reply,” Cllr McVitty said.