WATCH: Michelle O'Neill faces ferocious grilling at UK Covid inquiry: First Minister asked why she wiped phone messages despite 'clear' legal advice

She was sworn in using a secular oath as opposed to The Bible.

The First Minister of Northern Ireland began her testimony by confirming that yes, she led the country’s government, that she was a leader of her party both north and south, and that she was responsible for not just leading the response to the pandemic but leading by example too.

Having established her senior position in these slow, solemn opening exchanges with Clair Dobbin KC (barrister for the inquiry), Ms O’Neill began with the frequently-cited Sinn Fein line about “public services being decimated with 10 years of austerity cuts”.

A selection Ms O’Neill’s own words were then put to her, taken from her witness statement to the inquiry.

“Blaming others – that’s something you’ve done throughout your witness statement, isn’t it?” said Ms Dobbin.

"The constant theme throughout it, do you agree, is that you blame the UK government for the slowness of this approach in the initial stages of the pandemic: do you agree?”

"I don’t accept I blame others throughout the statement,” replied Ms O’Neill.

"I accept I point out where things are wrong. In particular, I do believe my position is vindicated in terms of the fact Boris Johnson and his government were too slow to act at the start of the pandemic.”

The following was also put to her by Ms Dobbin: “Ms O’Neill, there’s no reflection I think, nor any insight in your witness statement, about any of the hurt or any of the problems you caused by attending the funeral of Mr Storey [the IRA enforcer who died while receiving NHS care in England].”

"I think I have addressed that in my statement,” Ms O’Neill replied, then asked to “address the families” directly.

"You are here to give evidence, not to address people,” came the reply.

Ms O’Neill went on to say of the Storey funeral: “I am sorry for going – and I’m sorry for the hurt that has been caused.”

In 2020, she had said: “I will never apologise for attending the funeral of my friend.”

• MINUTIAE OF THE MINUTES:

The handwritten minutes of an Executive meeting just after the funeral were then shown to the inquiry.

These minutes recount that Ms O’Neill had told her colleagues she was “honoured” to be invited to funeral, that he was “a huge figure”, that she knew “thousands would want to attend”, that “people vote with feet,” that there was “no dilution in my mind of public message”, and there was “no offence intended”.

A section of the minutes was read out covering comments made by Conor Murphy (the former Sinn Fein finance minister, who is not attending the inquiry on grounds of ill-health).

That section of the minutes has him saying: “Rules relaxed – not same circumstances; breach of regs – technicalities; I attended, but not in cortege; chapel – soc dist – stewardship…

"People can say what they want to say – entitled to opinion, I’m entitled to be sceptical.”

Ms Dobbin turned to Mrs O’Neill and said the minutes showed her to be “entirely unapologetic on July 2, weren’t you?”

“It was immediately after the funeral itself. I think what I said there in terms of not diluting the public message, that was wrong, because clearly I did – and I have acknowledged that, and have worked every day ever since to regain public confidence and trust.”

She added, her voice appearing almost to break: "I would never, ever set out to hurt people.”

• PARTYGATE ‘HYPOCRISY’:

The chairwoman of the inquiry herself then quizzed her, putting it to her that “wasn’t it a bit hypocritical” to criticise Boris Johnson over ‘Partygate’ given her involvement in the funeral?

"I don’t think so because they’re two very different things in terms of the Boris Johnson approach of partying the whole way through the pandemic and blinking their way through it to be quite blunt…”

The chairwoman interjected: “We didn’t find out about the partying ‘til after the panedmic. What you did was to do something that the bereaved couldn’t do – the normal bereaved couldn’t do – because you wanted to go to a friends funeral.

"Isn’t that then saying what Boris Johnson’s government did was wrong was hypocritical?”

Ms O’Neill responded: "No, I don’t think so because what I did was under the understanding of the regulations at that time.

"I know we don’t want to open that up my lady but I have answered that.

"But I do accept wholeheartedly that I, in some way, damaged our executive relations with colleagues who had been working very hard with me the whole way through.

“I also accept wholeheartedly I damaged the public health messaging…

"I should have anticipated the outworking of what I did.”

Ms Dobbin then asked: “Was it really that difficult to anticipate the outworking of what you did Ms O’Neill?”

Ms O’Neill replied: “It was insofar as I was concerned on a personal invite attending a cortege of 30 people and I tried not to open this up but that’s the basis on which I attended.”

Ms Dobbin said: “One of the first questions I asked you was whether or not people from Northern Ireland got the leadership they deserved from you: how can you maintain that they did, in light of what you’ve just accepted?”

Ms O’Neill: “I didn’t say everything was perfect all of the time.

"I do believe that I did lead from the front the whole way through the pandemic, as did all of my executive colleagues.

"We’ve had difficulties, we’ve had challenging times, we’ve worked through very difficult times – which I’m sure you’ll want to speak about – but I do believe I led the whole way through; albeit I put my hands up in terms of the funeral itself and how I shouldn’t have done that, because that took away from all the work I’d put in to trying to lead us through the pandemic which was hard on everybody right across society…

"I worked day and night to get us through this pandemic, so apart from this one time I do believe my leadership was strong through the pandemic.”

Ms Dobbin said: “Well, let’s examine that...”

• DELETED MESSAGES:

Later in the session, Ms O’Neill was asked if she accepts that she “cleansed or wiped your devices when the powersharing arrangements came to an end”.

"That’s right,” she replied.

"Did you delete them in and around February 2022 or was it later than that?”

She responded: “I’m assuming whenever I left office, yes”.

Ms O’Neill went on to tell the inquiry she would periodically wipe and reset devices to delete personal information.

It was put to Ms O’Neill that, based on the phone records which the inquiry does possess, it was clear that she and Arlene Foster had used their phones to “discuss substantive matters about the response to the pandemic”.

Ms O’Neill said: "There may well have been the to-ing and fro-ing outside a meeting. All decisions were recorded on the official record in terms of what the civil service hold."

Ms Dobbin said: “It’s not just decisions that have to be recorded though is it? It’s discussions around them. there are rules aren’t there there’s guidance about what should be retained and committed to the official record.”

Ms O’Neill replied: “...I’m confident all those decisions were recorded. I’ve been a minister for health, I’ve been a minister for agriculture and rural affairs, and I noted other ministers – minister Long – had the same approach as I in terms of clearing your device because of sensitive information before you hand it back to the department because it’s going to be redistributed to another member of staff.”

Ms Dobbin then quoted from Ms O’Neill’s witness statement in which the Sinn Fein MLA had said: “I did not use WhatsApp, text messages, or iMessages to communicate about matters related to the response to the pandemic during the specified period other than logistical and administrative matters.’”

Ms Dobbin added that Ms O’Neill had been given “clear advice that you should be retaining WhatsApps” to which the Sinn Fein vice-president said: “Yes, but I believe I’ve misunderstood exactly what I should retain and thought I had retained everything that was relevant to the Covid decision-making process…

"Firstly I wiped the device, as minister Long explained, because we thought that was our custom and practice in terms of departmental phones being returned.

"Secondly that I believed the official record was recorded and populated.”

Thirdly, there was “a misunderstanding on my part” in terms of what constituted formal and informal communication.