Coronavirus: Sinn Fein backs new funeral rules but still no apology on Bobby Storey funeral, says TUV leader Jim Allister

Sinn Fein’s Northern Ireland leader Michelle O’Neill still hasn’t apologised for attending the funeral of veteran republican Bobby Storey in June. Critics said the funeral broke a range of Covid regulations at the time, something Sinn Fein rejected.

Last month Ms O’Neill acknowledged Stormont’s public health messaging had been “undermined” by the controversy adding: “and I regret that”. However critics noted that she did not actually apologise for attending the funeral.

Yesterday the Executive introduced a range of strict new restrictions in a bid to clamp down on the spread of Coronavirus, limiting the number of people who can attend a funeral to 25.

TUV leader Jim Allister said: “The last 24 hours have been far from confidence-building. When the pandemic meets Stormont dysfunction, the result is not encouraging. What is packaged as reasoned and considered is in reality the product of horse-trading between the DUP and Sinn Fein.”

He lamented the fact that the hospitality industry has been severely restricted, risking the jobs of many and that schools have been closed for a time while off licences stay open.

“This very much has the feel of lockdown by stages, crippled by the unrepaired damage to the credibility of the Executive messaging flowing from the fact that some ministers who sit at the Executive table flagrantly breached the very rules they made on funerals when for them honouring the terrorist Storey was more important than public health. Now, they again tell the rest of us only 25 at a funeral!”