Arlene Foster: Bobby Storey's IRA funeral hit Covid compliance across Northern Ireland
Former Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster said there was a fall in Covid compliance after Sinn Fein ministers, including then-deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill, attended the large-scale funeral for IRA man Bobby Storey in west Belfast in June 2020, when there were restrictions on social gatherings.
The former DUP leader made the claim at the Covid-19 Inquiry in London yesterday as it examined Stormont decisions made on test, trace and isolation.
“I don’t think that we were slow to promote compliance because day after day at press conferences we were urging the public to comply,” Mrs Foster told the inquiry.
“There was a breakdown in compliance after the attendance of senior members of Sinn Fein at a high-ranking republican funeral at the end of June, which caused severe difficulties in Northern Ireland with compliance and adherence.”
She said that despite efforts made, including working with the PSNI and giving money to councils to employ Covid marshals, there was “a difficulty which still hung over the executive” around non-compliance because of the Storey funeral.
Asked about Mrs Foster’s comments, Ms O’Neill, now the first minister, told the inquiry: “I think, unfortunately, I believe Arlene Foster raised that issue again today in the inquiry because the comments are politically motivated.
“I don’t believe there is any evidence that suggests that actually is the case.”
Ms O’Neill apologised for having attended the funeral at the Covid inquiry in 2024.
Earlier yesterday, Mrs Foster said it was “inhumane” that people had to die alone during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The former DUP leader said if she could change one thing from that period, it would be that families should have been allowed to make their own informed decisions on being with their dying loved ones.
She said: “Those living alone were isolated and lonely, people who were dying alone in hospital and if I could change one thing, my lady, it would be that.
“We should have given families all of the information, told them about the risks, and allowed them to make the decisions as to whether they wanted to be with their loved ones as they were dying.
“Because I think it is quite inhumane, when one thinks about it, to allow someone to die alone in the way that so many people did.”
Mrs Foster and Ms O’Neill were also asked about the decision to end contact tracing on March 12 2020.
Mrs Foster said the decision was made after a Cobra meeting on March 12, at which she, Ms O’Neill, and then-health minister Robin Swann had little opportunity to engage and were “in receive mode”.
Both Mrs Foster and Ms O’Neill said they did not take it from the Cobra meeting that contact tracing was to stop.
Mrs Foster said: “I didn’t have the understanding after that Cobra meeting, clearly wrongly now, that we were going to stop contact tracing as a consequence of the discussions at that Cobra meeting. The Department of Health clearly did have that understanding and stopped the contact tracing.”
NI chief medical officer Michael McBride told the inquiry that testing capacity issues were behind the decision to stop community testing and that the ending of contact tracing was a “second order” as a result of that.
“Even a week after 12 March, we had less than 200 tests available to us in Northern Ireland on a daily basis, and even that was limited because of the lack of reagents that we had and swabs that we had because of global supply issues.”