Belfast Covid inquiry hears of 'discernible chill' at Stormont after Sinn Fein attended IRA funeral
At day two of the Covid Inquiry in Belfast, the former head of the Civil Service has defended not activating contingency planning earlier at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Sir David Sterling also said how relations between senior politicians "soured" following Sinn Fein's attendance at the funeral of former IRA leader, Bobby Storey.
Northern Ireland’s commissioner for older people blasted as “reckless” people being discharged to care homes without being tested for Covid-19.
‘Chill’ between Foster and O’Neill after Storey funeral, Covid inquiry told
There was a “discernible chill” between Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster and deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill following the funeral of IRA veteran Bobby Storey, the Covid-19 Inquiry has heard.
Ms O’Neill attended the large-scale funeral in west Belfast for Mr Storey in June 2020 despite lockdown restrictions on public gatherings.
The then head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, Sir David Sterling, said her attendance affected relations at the Stormont Executive.
This included Ms Foster and Ms O’Neill stopping their then daily joint press conferences on Covid-19.
Appearing at the UK-wide Covid-19 Inquiry sitting in Belfast, Sir David said he would not comment on the issue itself but said it did cause divisions.
“The atmosphere in the Executive was difficult after that. One of the most immediate practical implications was that the joint press conferences which took place most afternoons by the First Minister and deputy First Minister stopped, and that was significant because the feedback we got from the start from attitude surveys etc was that the community found those press conferences very helpful, very reassuring, and it was a very visible manifestation of ministers working together, and the absence of that I think did reduce public confidence for a period of time,” he said.
“People on the outside perhaps don’t fully understand that even parties who were diametrically opposed on a whole range of issues, they can actually work together quite well behind the scenes, but there was a discernible chill after that.
“Business was still transacted… issues were still brought to the Executive, discussions still took place, decisions were taken. I don’t recall that that became any more difficult than it had been.”
Pressed by Clair Dobbin, lead counsel to the inquiry, Sir David added: “It wasn’t helpful… generally it’s just harder to do business whenever the relationship is not as it should be.”
On Tuesday during opening statements, the inquiry heard that in March 2020, Sir David sent a Whatsapp messages criticising political division at Stormont as ministers discussed lockdown measures.
In one message on March 17, he described an Executive meeting the previous day as “excruciating”, adding “no leadership on display at all”.
On Wednesday, Sir David was asked about the message by Ms Dobbin.
He said he wanted to clarify that message came during what he said “was probably the most difficult two or three days that I experienced during the first wave”.
He added: “It was a protracted discussion, people had got into fixed positions, it had split along Nationalist/Unionist lines.
“My frustration, as expressed in a message that night, was born of a concern that this might be how things played out from here.
“Now, there were difficulties on occasion afterward but by and large not of that magnitude.”
Sir David added: “I think it’s just recognising our context where we have five parties in an enforced coalition, very different ideologies, very different aspirations for this place, having to work together, but I think it’s important to recognise that on all the big issues they eventually did reach decisions.
“It was painstaking, it was difficult at times but decisions were taken.”
‘Reckless’ to discharge people to care homes without Covid tests
Northern Ireland’s commissioner for older people has blasted as “reckless” cases during the pandemic where people were discharged to care homes without being tested for Covid-19.
Eddie Lynch said it was a “serious concern” among both the families of patients and care providers.
He also called for better understanding surrounding restrictions on families visiting their loved ones in care homes at points during the pandemic, describing the situation as “devastating”.
Mr Lynch made his comments while giving evidence to the second day of the UK-wide Covid-19 Inquiry’s sitting in Belfast.
He described the coronavirus pandemic as a “steep learning curve”.
The commissioner said his office received a lot of contact in the early stages of the pandemic around patients being discharged to care homes without a Covid-19 test.
“It did come to my attention several times about the hospitals being cleared out to make space for a possible surge of Covid patients, and part of that seemed to be discharging people into care homes where they could,” he said.
“I was very concerned, as so were the care home providers, that those people were put into those settings without testing.
“I think it was very clear cut that the policy of discharging people without testing into those settings was a potentially disastrous one. I think it was quite reckless a decision to take to allow that to happen.”
He added: “If this was to happen again, clearly decisions like this need to be thought through and the consequences of making those decisions need to be thought through, and I’m sure that that policy alone contributed to a lot of negative outcomes in homes.”
Mr Lynch also said he would like an outcome of the inquiry to be looking at how care homes could be protected in the event of something similar happening again, given the “devastating” impact of people not being able to visit their loved ones.
“I think that issue of human contact and visiting would have to be something that a future pandemic needs to get better (on),” he added.
He said the Department of Health took a “reactive response” to planning and protecting people during the pandemic, but that it exposed a “dividing line” between the health service and social care sector.
“There was clearly a focus on protecting the NHS, the concern was clearly about hospital capacity, but as a result of that we saw a lot of the care home and social care sector really struggle,” he said.
“I had many, both care home providers and domiciliary care providers, coming to my office a lot in those early weeks saying that, in their words, they felt high and dry, that they were being left to fend for themselves, not least the issues around PPE.”
The UK-wide inquiry opened hearings in the Northern Ireland capital on Tuesday morning.
The hearings in Belfast will run for three weeks and are designed to provide an opportunity to look in depth at the decisions taken in Northern Ireland.
This module will investigate the initial response, central government decision making, political and civil service performance as well as the effectiveness of relationships with governments in the devolved administrations and local and voluntary sectors.
It will also assess decisions behind lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Former first minister Baroness Arlene Foster, current First Minister Michelle O’Neill (who was deputy first minister during the pandemic), and Health Minister Robin Swann are expected to be among the witnesses to give evidence.
Key figures in Stormont’s Department of Health, including chief medical officer Sir Michael McBride and chief scientific adviser Professor Ian Young, are also expected to face questions at the inquiry.
The inquiry is set to hear from the former head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Sir David Sterling later today.
On Tuesday during opening statements, the inquiry heard that in March 2020, Sir David sent a number of Whatsapp messages criticising political division at Stormont.
In one message on March 17, he described an Executive meeting the previous day as “excruciating”, adding “no leadership on display at all”.
Workers in processing plants ‘particularly at risk’ during pandemic
Workers in processing plants were particularly at risk during the pandemic, a senior trade union official has said.
Gerry Murphy, from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), started his evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry sitting in Belfast by remembering the 400 people of working age in Northern Ireland who died during the pandemic.
He said he hopes the work of the inquiry as a whole “will aid the creation of a set of circumstances where such a situation will never arise again”.
The inquiry heard that some 30,000 workers in Northern Ireland are employed through agencies, with a large proportion of these during the pandemic working in agriculture and the food processing sector.
It also heard that the highest proportion of deaths among people of working age in the region were among workers in processing plants and machine operatives.
“13.4% of that 400 who lost their lives were in that sector,” Mr Murphy told the inquiry.
Mr Murphy said following the death of a worker at a processing plant, a senior Unite official wrote to the then-first minister Dame Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill raising concern that there should have been mass Covid testing in that sector.
“That never happened. There should have been more unannounced inspections. That didn’t happen either,” he said.
“Unite the Union felt, and we shared this view up to a point as well, that there was some wilful disregarding of the advice on the part of some of the employers.
“Those working in processing plants were particularly at risk, as were those who were in front-facing occupations such as retail – that was the other big proportion of those 400 lives that were lost.”
Mr Murphy was also asked about an engagement forum that the trade unions had taken part in during the early part of the pandemic.
He said it did good work initially, identifying the list of key workers and essential sectors, but later in 2020 it had ceased to function effectively and had effectively ended by 2021.
He suggested that political leaders be asked why the work of the forum did not continue.
Activating emergency response to Covid in NI few days earlier ‘probably prudent’
The former head of Northern Ireland’s Civil Service has said it “probably would have been prudent” to have established the emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic days earlier.
The UK government initiated COBR in January 2020, but Stormont did not activate the Northern Ireland Central Crisis Management Arrangements (NICCMA) until March.
The first case of Covid-19 was confirmed in Northern Ireland on February 27, while the first death with the virus was recorded on March 19.
Giving evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry sitting in Belfast on Wednesday, then head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service Sir David Sterling said in his view you did not activate the NICCMA until you had moved out of the prepare phase.
He said they were in daily contact with the Department of Health and attending COBR meetings.
“I was always very clear that at any point in time they asked us to activate NICCMA, and by that I mean establish the Civil Contingencies Group and Northern Ireland hub, we would have done so,” Sir David said.
But he said, looking back now it probably would have been prudent to have activated the NICCMA days earlier.
“I will concede now that it would probably have been prudent to have established it a few days earlier, perhaps at the end of the previous week,” Sir David said.
“Firstly, and again this is knowing what we know now, we didn’t get the number of volunteers coming forward to staff up the hub which provides support to CCG that we had anticipated, and for that reason it would have been sensible I think to have established it a little earlier so that we could have known this and mitigated.”
Earlier in his evidence, Sir David said leaks from the Stormont executive made it harder to do business efficiently.
He said there had been issues with leaks from the executive going back to 1998, however there is a perception it has worsened in recent years with mobile phones with cameras now commonplace and social media.
Sir David said this often meant papers were not given to ministers until the last minute, leading to adjournments to allow them to be read before meetings.
“It made it harder to do business efficiently,” he added.
Sir David also said in his experience there was a reluctance among all of the political parties to do things which they perceived would spark a negative public reaction.
However he said when the Stormont executive was re-formed in January 2020 following three years of collapse, he detected a “strong desire amongst the new ministerial team to work together”.
“I think they clearly felt that after a three-year absence they needed to step up, they recognised that there was a lack of public confidence in the institutions,” Sir David said, adding he was “quite impressed by the sort of collegiality” initially.
But he said the onset of the pandemic meant they were never able to translate their preliminary work into a Programme for Government.
Sir David’s evidence is due to continue until Wednesday evening.
The UK-wide inquiry opened hearings in the Northern Ireland capital on Tuesday morning.
The hearings in Belfast will run for three weeks and are designed to provide an opportunity to look in depth at the decisions taken in Northern Ireland.
This module will investigate the initial response, central government decision-making, political and Civil Service performance as well as the effectiveness of relationships with governments in the devolved administrations and local and voluntary sectors.
It will also assess decisions behind lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions.
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