Ireland is a latecomer to Public Private Partnership (PPP) having only adopted it in 1998.Prior to the credit crisis, Ireland followed the UK model with PPPs being implemented in transport, education, housing/urban regeneration and water/wastewater. Having stalled during the credit crisis, PPP has been reactivated recently with the domestic infrastructure stimulus programme i . The focus of this paper is on Ireland as a younger participant in PPP and the nexus between adoption patterns and sustainability characteristics of Irish PPP. Using document analysis and exploratory interviews, the paper examines the reasons for Ireland's interest in PPP which cannot be attributed to economic rationales alone. We consider three explanations: voluntary adoption -where the UK model was closely followed as part of a domestic modernisation agenda; coercive adoption -where PPP policy was forced upon public sector organisations; and institutional isomorphism -where institutional creation and change around PPP was promoted to help public sector organisations gain institutional legitimacy. We find evidence of all three patterns with coercive adoption becoming more relevant in recent years, which is likely to affect sustainability adversely unless incentives for voluntary adoption are strengthened and institutional capacity building is boosted. Points for PractitionersThere are many reasons public sector organisations procure via PPP and motivations can change over time. In Ireland PPP adoption changed from being largely voluntary to increasingly coercive. Irrespective of motives, PPP procurement must be underpinned by incentives and institutional enabling mechanisms which should be strengthened to make Ireland's PPP strategy sustainable.

No abstract

No abstract

The discrepancy between formal arrangements to ensure health security, as assessed in the Global Health Security Index, and COVID‐19 outcomes points to a broader problem where formal risk recognition is de‐coupled from potentially resource‐intensive follow‐up policy implementation. Germany is an extreme example of this. Pre‐COVID‐19, Germany's Federal Office of Civilian Protection conducted two pandemic preparation exercises based on scenarios which closely mirrored the current COVID‐19 pandemic: (a) a multi‐jurisdictional, multi‐agency crisis management exercise assuming a global influenza pandemic and (b) a joint federal and expert‐agency based risk‐analysis assuming the outbreak of a modified severe acute respiratory symptom virus. While informing legal and institutional reforms, key recommendations on storing personal protective equipment (PPE) and disinfectants for front‐line staff were subsequently ignored. PPE shortages initially put staff at risk, led to export restrictions on PPE, and later on hampered the country's ability to address a second wave of the pandemic. This short paper calls for a fuller exploration of factors which hinder ‘‘implementation post‐cognition.’’

the WHO Regional Office for Europe issued a formal statement of concern regarding the slow vaccine rollout across Europe [1]. The WHO noted that the "Region remains the second most affected by SARS-CoV-2 of all the world's regions" which was worrying, especially because the more transmissible B.1.1.7 was now dominant in the region [1]. It further contrasted this with the experiences of the UK, by noting that according to data from Public Health England, "COVID-19 vaccines have saved, at the very least, over 6,000 lives among people over 70 since vaccination started in December 2020". Beyond such statements and a general awareness that many countries within the EU, in particular, lag behind in terms of vaccination, the impact of this policy failure remains poorly understood. One issue that appears to be hampering a European-wide debate regarding this issue, is the fact that globally the link between curbing COVID-19 and progress in vaccination is not entirely straightforward. Here, we will attempt to highlight the human cost of this EU policy failure by reference to recent patterns of COVID-19 deaths across several large EU countries.Globally, COVID-19 vaccination rates differ widely, and as of 3 rd March 2021, countries such as Israel, Chile, the UK, and also the EU member state, Hungary, are among the top performers in terms of vaccine rollout with administered rates of 130, 78, 75 and 63 doses per 100 people, respectively [2]. As of 2 nd May 2021, the rolling seven-day average for daily new confirmed COVID-19 deaths, nonetheless, is very high for Hungary with 17.4 per million inhabitants, above average for Chile with 5.27, and very significantly below the global average for the UK with 0.24, and Israel with 0.23 deaths per million [3]. For the UK and Israel, the recent data on COVID-19 deaths reflect the actual impact of vaccination on COVID-19 risk because those two countries started vaccination on a major scale toward the end of December 2020 and eased