Churches, garden centres and angling – DUP minister sets out possible graduated easing of lockdown

It is now more than five weeks since the restrictions on movement, gatherings and trading came into force and at this afternoon’s daily Stormont press conference both the DUP’s Edwin Poots and Sinn Fein’s Deirdre Hargey emphasised that there will be no imminent move towards lifting most of those restrictions.

However, Mr Poots suggested the possibility of easing the rules in certain areas such as church gatherings where people can be kept apart or on solitary activities such as angling.

He stressed that such changes would only be made in line with medical and scientific advice, but said that ministers were aware of the negative impact of the current rules on the mental health of the population.

Today the Department of Health announced nine more deaths from Covid-19, bringing its interim total figure to 338 deaths – although the actual figure will be significantly higher than that when all deaths are registered, which takes some time.

Health Minister Robin Swann warned against complacency and said that the lockdown will only end when the “time is right” but that could be at a different time than other parts of the UK or Ireland.

Mr Poots said that he attends a church which has 700 seats and added: ”If we can facilitate social distancing, can we do it? That’s a reasonable question to ask.

“If you have a church where you can’t facilitate social distancing but people want to come together, can you do it in drive-in churches, for example, so that people don’t get out of their cars and they listen to the service through the radio but they still gather?

“Those are all questions that we as an Executive have to look at.”

The Agriculture and Environment Minister also said that he would have to look at whether angling could be allowed, given its solitary nature, or whether garden centres could re-open.

He added: “All of these things, where there is little impact...are the things where we can graduate [the relaxation] at a certain point.

“Obviously the opening of pubs and restaurants and sporting activities that involve contact and all of those things, those are going to take considerably longer.”

He said there was a need for “harsh restrictions” at the outset bu that “I believe that we can keep people with us by having a graduated response to it...giving people a little more latitude to engage in some of the activities that they prefer to engage in.”

Earlier this week Derry City and Strabane District Council reported that 7,000 people had shown up at its cemeteries in the first two days of reopening.

When asked how the Executive would manage that sort of pent up demand in each of the areas where it begins to relax restrictions, Mr Poots said that he had no concerns about such numbers in cemeteries where it is easy for people to remain apart.

He said that while some people would “take liberties”, that they could be left to the police.

”The vast majority of people have been responsible. Let’s be very clear - in terms of the public response to coronavirus, the public has been hugely responsible.

“And having engaged in this for six weeks, I don’t believe that giving the public small steps back to normality – very small steps, baby steps – that all of a sudden people are going to become irresponsible. The people who would be irresponsible in those circumstances are irresponsible before.”

He said that those breaking the law by holding events such as house parties were acting in ways which are “not appropriate”, but added: “We do not deal with the wider public by taking the view that the irresponsible might have”.

Priority supermarket delivery slots for the elderly coming to NI ‘soon’

Elderly and vulnerable people should soon be able to get priority online booking slots for supermarkets, Communities Minister Deirdre Hargey has said.

On Monday the News Letter revealed that Northern Ireland is the final part of the UK where that remains impossible because Stormont has been unable to get its database to shops.

Ms Hargey said that was  “unfortunate” but that rather than one central database, as in England, there are more than 350 databases in GP surgeries and there has been issues getting supermarkets to agree to sign agreements about how they would use the data.

She said she hoped to a positive announcement “very shortly”.

Ms Hargey said that the reason that the death toll had been less than initially feared was that the public had been “amazing” in adhering “stringently” to health advice and also the restrictions.
She said that the regulations would be reviewed next week, but “now is not the time for complacency; the concern would be that if you start to knee-jerk without a planned relaxation of the regulations that you could set that [deaths] figure to go in the opposite direction again”.

—— ——

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.

Subscribe to newsletter.co.uk and enjoy unlimited access to the best Northern Ireland and UK news and information online and on our app. With a digital subscription, you can read more than 5 articles, see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Visit https://www.newsletter.co.uk/subscriptions now to sign up.

Our journalism costs money and we rely on advertising, print and digital revenues to help to support them. By supporting us, we are able to support you in providing trusted, fact-checked content for this website.

Alistair Bushe

Editor