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THE CHINESE AMBASSADOR to Ireland has said he supports the government’s decision to recommend cancelling the Ireland v Italy Six Nations match next month over coronavirus fears.
He also told TheJournal.ie that he believes lessons can be learned from the initial delay in locking down China’s Hubei province where the virus originated.
The IRFU yesterday confirmed it would postpone the rugby match due to take place at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on 7 March, following a recommendation from the government’s National Public Health Emergency Team.
Two other games, the under 20s Ireland v Italy game and the women’s Ireland v Italy game were scheduled for 6 and 8 March, and have also been postponed.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Ambassador He Xiangdong suggested that mass gatherings should now be avoided in Ireland as the virus continues to spread across Europe.
“I think it is up to the people of Ireland to make the decision, and the Irish government to make the decision, but our own lesson and experience is to try and avoid unnecessary mass gatherings,” he said.
The outbreak in China coincided with thousands of people travelling for the Spring Festival or Chinese New Year, delaying the lockdown of Wuhan in Hubei province – the epicentre of the virus outbreak.
“Just before the Spring Festival in Hubei province on 25 January, in the capital city of Wuhan – a few days before that they already had quite a number of confirmed cases but they still stuck to some mass gathering activities there.
So the result is that it turned out to be a bad decision.
“I will say that making this kind of decision is always painful, not only for the government and the local community and the relative institutions, like Rugby Union, the audience, the fans of the Irish rugby team.”
He Xiangdong took up residence as the ambassador to Ireland last May – the 14th ambassador to Ireland over a forty year period.
More than 2,600 people have died from the novel coronavirus so far, with the vast majority of those deaths occurring in China.
While the World Health Organisation suggested China acted fast in mitigating the spread, it has been criticised by others, including the US government which claims it failed to warn people of the virus in an appropriate time frame.
The virus has since spread to dozens of countries worldwide, with European countries like Croatia and Switzerland now rallying to halt it spreading.
Italy has been worst hit so far in Europe with 11 people dead and authorities reporting more than 300 other confirmed cases.
“The situation now in Italy should be taken as great concern for us living here in Europe because it is close in Europe and the virus knows no border, especially here in Europe because there is no boundary among EU member countries,” the ambassador said.
“I think that [Italian authorities] were quick, quite frankly. It just took a few days for the local government in northern parts of Italy to make the decision to lockdown the cities and the towns.
“Our lessons in Hubei province is that it took several weeks for the local government to put it on lockdown and that’s because it’s a difficult decision and it was just before the Spring Festival.”
Italy cancelled its annual Venice carnival events within days of the first confirmed cases in the country. Ambassador He said he recognised the difficult task in calling these events off but agreed with the view of Health Minister Simon Harris that mass gatherings should be avoided.
“That is a huge sacrifice in Venice,” he said.
“I think for the [people's] sake, I totally agree with Minister Harris in what he said – that public health trumps sport.”
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End the USC, help the working people
@Tony Brady: Will never happen. Pascal even admitted this on radio yesterday
With the rumoured surpluses today for this year and next, they could afford to give people the services they need and deserve. People with children awaiting assessments of need for disgracefully long periods of time. Start paying nurses, doctors, teachers properly. Cut waiting lists and treat people. I could go on, but knowing this country it will all be squandered yet again.
@Declan Moran: I’m surprised you didn’t want it all sent to Ukraine.
@west awake: go back to sleep
@Declan Moran: they won’t be used to improve public services. They will continue to run down public services until the only option left is to introduce more private services. As for Budget 2024, what about now?
Stop the eminent fuel tax increase
@David Mercedes: that’s conveniently forgotten! Will be €2 again by end of year and they’ll say “oh there’s nothing we can do” …..
I thought we owed €240,000,000,000 debt, shouldn’t we sort that out first?
A large surplus like this is a great opportunity for the government to get creative on big ticket items as suggested here, abolish the USC, invest in social housing, public transport etc. Big projects. Unfortunately, politicians live by the parish pump so it’ll be frittered away on little tokens. An extra fiver on social welfare payments, “bonus” one off payments to certain welfare recipients. All temporal that don’t get to the root of the issue. Politician need to step up and get creative and think long term.
A budget surplus of €12bn could go a long way to building a decent public transport system in Dublin, increasing hospital capacity in Limerick and Cork where there is huge overcrowding and building more affordable homes but will any of these things happen? I wouldn’t hold my breath .
Loads of cash, and not a clue what to do with it!
That should be enough to get rid of USC. Additional money in people pockets will allow more money to go into the states coffers. Also finally help the people who pay for all this. The workers. I bet they are thinking about this in next budget as an election tactic.
@Will Roche: Well said. Definitely next year we’ll be hearing about the record surplus for 2024 all over election time
Just give taxes back to working people. If you have a surplus with such bad public services, you don’t need to put those taxes brackets.
We need houses and we’ve a huge SURPLUS coming in?
D’uh, what could we do???
Unbelievable
What’s going on in this country when government ministers are saying they have billions to spend on asylum seekers, homeless people, Ukrainians etc., but will not increase the tax threshold on inheritances for children and forcing the sale of houses after the death of the parent in one child families.
Economics for dummies brought to you by the government of Ireland. Inflation still increasing. Solution. Pump more money into the economy.
@Niall English: If inflation were that simple, economics would be redundant. It’s a lot more complex than that. The recent advent of inflation has led the European Central Bank to identify excessive company profits as a bigger driver of inflation than wage demand. Many commentators are quick to try to dampen down wage demands with talk of a wage-price spiral situation. I think most working people can see through those arguments, particularly when they are exposed to obvious price-gouging. There can be no sustainable case for wage moderation or a decrease in spending while inflation continues to be driven by excessive company profits, neither in the public or private sector.
More prompt proactivity needed.
40000 as the start of the 40% tax band is crazy. Average earners are paying into this. This should be moved up to and over 50000 incrementally over the next few years. A couple need to be earning 60000 each to get a modest mortgage. They are paying highest rate of tax……crazy
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There’ll be one for everybody in the audience, before the elections.
have your say