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Covid-19 Working Paper Series

The Covid-19 pandemic presented a very significant public health and public policy challenge to our country, and indeed globally – accordingly, NESC undertook research to contribute to Ireland’s policy response. This work supplemented recently completed (at the time) research on economic transition that was relevant to Covid-19, dealing with employment vulnerability and building resilience in times of economic change. The purpose of our Covid-19 work was to provide timely, concise analysis for policy-makers and other stakeholders.

This section of our website provides some of the output of this work – for example, reviews of policy developments and related literature written as the pandemic progressed, and analyses of events and key policy areas in other countries. Also included are pieces on Ireland’s transition to recovery, enterprise/employee supports, behavioural change and insights, social policy responses, and sustainable recovery.

This research work, under normal circumstances, would have been used to produce NESC reports, which are published only after detailed deliberation by the Council. By putting it in the public domain earlier, our intention was to assist those who worked on Ireland’s response to Covid-19 with research and data they could draw on and put into practice immediately. It also continues to inform Ireland’s discussion of its recovery from the Covid-19 crisis.

Transition to Recovery

The NESC Secretariat actively reviewed the latest policy developments and literature related to Covid-19, and monitored events in other countries in key policy areas as they happened.

In March 2020, NESC published Council Report No 149: Addressing Employment Vulnerability as Part of a Just Transition in Ireland. There are lessons from that research that can help Ireland’s transition to recovery post Covid-19. These include committing to the principle that nobody is left behind, committing to data collection and evidence from multiple sources, ensuring the process is participatory, and providing a vision for Ireland as resilient, sustainable, thriving, and net zero. Such a vision can help frame our post-pandemic recovery. The Council’s recommendations emphasise a high-quality jobs economy, targeted funding, and proactively engaging with employees about their skills. The report also focuses on making businesses more resilient by supporting companies which are vulnerable but viable, something that really came to the fore during the Covid-19 emergency.

Building on this, in addition to the Council’s extensive body of research, NESC’s Covid-19 work encompassed a key question: how can Ireland build a resilient recovery and address the wider economic and social implications of the crisis? The NESC Secretariat’s research interests in this area include:

  • how the crisis is managed in Ireland and in other countries, the financial and human costs, and lessons that will support the move into a recovery phase;
  • if, and how, a differentiated and managed approach to recovery can feed into public health advice which has economic and societal benefits; and
  • how a vision of the future can help motivate people in times of uncertainty, and reinforce the desire for a fairer, more inclusive society and economy with a greater focus on supportive public services and quality of life.

Working papers on these topics will appear below:

Protecting Enterprises & Employment: National Responses

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the comprehensive emergency measures that have been introduced to address to suppress the transmission of the virus, both nationally and internationally, have given rise to a severe economic shock that is unprecedented in both the size and speed of its propagation.  A combination of significant disruption to international supply chains, sharply weaker demand and the dramatic decline in investment is creating what the IMF have described as the worst economic downturn since the great depression.

In response to this unparalleled economic, social and health crisis, many governments have displayed a willingness to introduce an unprecedented set of financial, fiscal, monetary and other policies designed to provide support to enterprises, employees and households impacted by the global pandemic and the emergency measures introduced to address it.

The purpose of this section is to document the approach adopted by a number of European countries to both mitigate the immediate impact on enterprises and employees and provide a foundation for economic recovery.  It will also consider the extent to which social dialogue has played a role in the national policy responses to date.  It is recognised that these national policy responses are constantly evolving in real time, as policy makers’ knowledge and understanding of the virus, the economic challenges and the impact of policy actions already taken, is constantly updated. Therefore, the material on this page will be subject to periodic revision.

The countries examined include:

Behavioural Change & Insights

Research at the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) in recent years has applied elements of behavioural science to policy challenges in Ireland, most specifically to addressing climate change. (See here and here for some examples). Covid-19 is similar to climate change in that, if the challenge is to be met, it requires significant behavioural change by the population, and we know that changing behaviour is difficult.

Behavioural science is the study of human decision-making, specifically the impact of emotions and so-called decision-making biases on the choices we make. These biases can, for example, contribute to us not eating as healthily as we would like to or saving as much as we would like to. However, an empirical understanding of these biases can also help us do the opposite: to eat more healthily and save more.

In the current pandemic, behavioural science can help us reduce transmission, better assess risk, communicate to the public more effectively, understand the impact of isolation, and help us encourage good behaviours and discourage bad ones.

Fighting Covid-19 means changing individual and collective behaviour, from increased adoption of key hygiene behaviours, to keeping a distance of two metres between people, to longer periods of self-isolation. These changes can be encouraged by using lessons from behavioural science (lessons often referred to as behavioural insights).

Behavioural Insights: An inductive approach to policy making that combines insights
from psychology, cognitive science, and social science with empirically-tested results
to discover how humans actually make choices (OECD, 2020).

Fighting Covid-19 also means policy-makers getting key decisions right. Policy-makers’ decisions are just like any others, subject to the impact of emotions and decision-making biases. This can, for example, influence their assessment of risk, their level of confidence in their decisions, and perhaps most famously, can create the conditions for harmful ‘groupthink’. Again, policy-making can be improved by applying lessons from behavioural science- behavioural insights, in conjunction with the use of other evidence, available data and tools.

Given that the behavioural change required to contain Covid-19 is an urgent matter of public health, it is crucial that the full weight of behavioural science literature and of behavioural insights is brought to bear on this challenge, noting their limitations also.  Therefore, the NESC Secretariat will explore how behavioural science and insights can be applied to help fight Covid-19, in areas such as:

(* This Overview paper, while not dealing directly with Covid-19 is provided as an aid to reading the other working papers)

Social Policy Responses to Covid-19

The on-set of the Covid-19 pandemic has required, and brought about, unprecedented and fundamental changes in many social policy areas.  These changes have been foremost in the delivery of healthcare, but also in education, childcare, nursing homes, housing, social welfare, community supports and justice, including policing.

This section documents the responses that have been put in place in Ireland across these policy areas, with the exception of social welfare which is included in the section on employee supports. For each policy area:

the changes which have taken place and the measures put in place are described;
comparisons are made with other countries, where relevant, especially where novel or innovative measures have been implemented;
lessons learned and shortcomings are discussed; and
consideration is given to how these social policy areas might evolve post-pandemic.

Over the coming weeks and months, work will be undertaken on the following social policy areas:

Responding Sustainably

The Covid-19 crisis has revealed a number of critical challenges in relation to Ireland’s economic, environmental and social sustainability. In recent years, NESC has integrated sustainable development approaches and research into its work programme. This has included a focus on a just transition, climate change, a circular economy, sustainable aquaculture and greening the economy.

The urgent imperative to act sustainably, to address global climate change and biodiversity loss, is ever-present. Investment and policy decisions will be made in the coming months that will be critical in addressing these urgent challenges.

The Covid-19 emergency is revealing a number of further critical challenges that will inform responses going forward, such as:

  • The frailty of business as usual;
  • The human, economic and social costs that have been put dramatically on view;
  • The need to understand the deep and personal connection between the natural world and our health, economy and society;
  • The global nature of the Covid-19 crisis and how our response is strengthened through international cooperation;
  • The shifting nature of the global, EU and national economic, political, social, health and climate contexts; and
  • The extent to which the present crisis has increased societal concerns about inequality (WEF, 2020).

As Ireland works to build a resilient post-pandemic economy and society, the NESC Secretariat will continue to examine key perspectives, approaches and practices in sustainable development that can be used to meet these challenges. Some key questions that underpin this work include:

  • How can policy responses can be aligned and configured to Covid-19 in ways that successfully and urgently drive and deliver sustainable, low carbon development and practices?
  • How can we bridge the sustainability gap: building-in sustainability; and identifying new opportunities?
  • What can the European Green Deal bring to a post-coronavirus recovery?
  • What are the opportunities to do things differently and more sustainably going forward?
  • To explore economic and societal shifts from the crisis;
    To urgently reduce emissions to meet 2030 targets while also stimulating the economy;
    To invest in local economy and community responses, the circular economy, bioeconomy, flexible working, and sustainable mobility;
    To co-build local economies through community wealth measures, social contracts, and community energy etc.;
    To further enhance Ireland’s natural habitats, air quality and ecosystems, which are anecdotally enhanced by our reduced presence and activity; and
    To carefully review remote working practices to ensure everyone can benefit.
  • What wellbeing and ‘beyond GDP’ criteria may be used to evaluate Ireland’s progress in achieving the public good of sustainability? and
  • How to identify frameworks and perspectives that can underpin policy actions which help to balance economic, social and environmental limits?

This Secretariat working paper, Progressing Sustainability in the Context of Covid-19: Grasping the Opportunity, examines some of these challenges and opportunities and explores how they could inform and help to deliver low carbon and sustainable policy responses.

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