How damning that our Stormont system is so dysfunctional, Michelle O’Neill is presiding over a major new lockdown

The IRA funeral on June 30 was the biggest calculating social distancing breach in the UK or Ireland after the March lockdown.

Thousands of people responded to the republican call to attend and pay tribute to the IRA terrorist, Bobby Storey. A man who like all the IRA godfathers escaped justice in his life, was lauded in death.

The funeral was all the more shameful for several reasons. Thousands of decent folk across Northern Ireland obeyed rules so that their loved ones had smaller funerals than they would have done, yet saw this republican display, given special treatment by PSNI and Belfast City Council.

It was further shameful because one of the two biggest parties in government, Sinn Fein, was at the helm of the flagrant social distancing breach— a party that had been relentlessly self righteous on lockdown.

It was shameful because after the event the other political parties were at first feeble in their reaction, seemingly terrified of SF collapsing Stormont again. After a public outcry, they became more critical.

And it was shameful because Sinn Fein is unapologetic. Ms O’Neill, always graceless, has been truculent ever since, and yesterday said she always followed guidelines, then attacked the DUP. It is a damning reflection on our dysfunctional system that such a person is presiding over a new lockdown. And on a weak Tory government that did nothing to stop Sinn Fein get reward for its 2017 Stormont collapse.

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