It is a disgrace that Michelle O’Neill is presiding over coming lockdown given that Storey funeral breach is still unresolved

It is a grave insult to the people of Northern Ireland that Michelle O’Neill is at the helm of approving these new restrictions that will cause so much harm to so many people.

It comes after months of financial harm to swathes of society and months of obedient conduct by the great bulk of people, thousands of whom even missed funerals of loved ones.

Yet the Sinn Fein deputy first minister and the leadership of the party were present at the mass breach of social distancing for the IRA funeral at the end of June.

It was utterly scandalous in its own right, but, worse, it was completely hypocritical. The party had been most hardline about lockdown and full of sanctimony, always depicting the Tory government as inflicting great damage on Covid.

After the Bobby Storey funeral, some politicians in other parties were slow to be critical of such an overt breach. The reticence seemed to reflect fear in the multi party coalition that Sinn Fein – who do not want Northern Ireland to exist, or it seems work – would cause to fall Stormont again.

Such collapses are fine for SF because UK and Irish governments will never take any action against them. But the public fury at republicans being allowed to defy Covid rules so flagrantly was such that other parties could not overlook it.

There is a probe into how the PSNI facilitated the funeral and one into the extraordinary closure of Roselawn cemetery to give it special treatment. Yet as of last week the PSNI had not interviewed Sinn Fein leaders about the breach.

Lockdown was brought into disrepute that day and the public goodwill of the previous months trampled upon. Now an email shows that SF said the funeral was open to all (SF claims it was for information only).

It is a daily disgrace that Ms O’Neill has a continuing role in setting Covid restrictions, let alone rules as severe as those about to begin.

Yet her party is so unembarrassed that it has within the last 10 days again become hardline on lockdown.

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