My relatives don’t follow stuff in Ireland like I do but a few days ago upon hearing how businesses were opening illegally in order to survive, the response from one of them is that sooner or later people will riot. As it happened a major anti-lockdown protest over the weekend in Dublin looked like it might have turned into one.
While there are most definitely questions about enforcement the Irish lockdown has been ranked the harshest in the European Union, with people & businesses left to fend for themselves with no end in sight. Dublin pubs are basically a complete write-off now and a lot of retail has not had it much better. And for all its bluster all that has come from the government is obligations and inaction.
Just to show how ineffective the Irish state is they have stated that the passport office will be closed down for the duration of level-5, whereas in contrast the UK passport office at the height of the new-year surge was able to renew my British one within a week. This is clearly a case of Irish civil servants using Covid-19 as an excuse for an extended holiday.