Executive flounders haplessly, and then goes home at 8pm – with still no hint of a decision on restrictions

For unfathomable reasons, businesses and the wider public were yet again left with no idea of what they will be allowed to do from this weekend.

Some businesses – especially those which ordered perishable stock which depends on being allowed to open – now face a direct financial penalty because they listened to Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill and believed their promises.

And in a further twist to an already absurd week, Stormont could not even clarify whether the law expires tonight or tomorrow night, with legal dispute as to what the regulations mean.

One senior Stormont source expressed concern that the indefensible way in which the Executive has handled the issue will now undermine public support for whatever plan to suppress the virus – if indeed there is one – emerges at the end of this protracted wrangling.

Declan Moore, who owns Claude’s cafe in Londonderry, said simply: “It’s a total shambles.”

Ministers, who had left to the last minute the crucial decision on whether to extend the current restrictions, contrary to what they had promised he public, and who did not hold emergency meetings over the weekend as time ran out, did even sit late last tonight to try to resolve the issue but broke up just after 8pm

As throughout this week, there was no official statement from the Executive to explain what it was doing or why it had not sat into the night. But that vacuum was filled with extensive cross-party briefing.

This morning the Nolan Show revealed that the First Minister had spoken to the deputy First Minister on the phone on Saturday and that Ms O’Neill had told the DUP leader what she planned to say in her interview with the BBC’s Sunday Politics the following day.

The Nolan Show said that it had been told that Mrs Foster asked Ms O’Neill not to make those comments – which centred around an alternative plan for easing restrictions, contrary to the chief medical officer’s advice, but banning restaurants from serving alcohol.

However, Ms O’Neill went ahead and did so anyway, for reasons which remain unclear – and also claimed in the interview that she was in 100% agreement with Mrs Foster.

Today the Sinn Féin leader at Stormont did not deny that had happened, or attempt to explain what had gone on.

However, in a statement Ms O’Neill – who by Monday had changed her stance and was backing the chief medical officer’s position – said that on Tuesday night the Executive had been “warned by the chief medical officer that any easing of the current restrictions would cause ‘excess deaths’.

“The advice was stark and clear – if we don’t keep current restrictions in place for another two weeks, more people will die.”

Sinn Féin MP Chris Hazzard admitted on Talkback this afternoon that even though Ms O’Neill had said on Sunday that there would definitely be an Executive agreement on Monday and then gave the outline of that likely deal, she did so without having taken scientific or medical advice on it.

He then said that the reason for her U-turn on Monday was because of having belatedly taken that medical advice – even though Ms O’Neill had known all along that the chief medical officer’s advice was to keep the current restrictions for two more weeks.

Mrs Foster said that Sinn Féin had to explain why they had changed position.

After days of inconclusive meetings, ministers had resumed their debate just after midnight on Tuesday night but the meeting broke up not long after that with agreement on nothing other than to come back for more discussions today.

The Executive eventually reconvened just after lunch time today and DUP Economy Minister Diane Dodds tabled her proposal to partially re-open hospitality this weekend, but keep pubs shut.

That proposal is believed to have received no support from any of the other parties and was defeated in a vote.

Health Minister Robin Swann then tabled a fresh proposal to extend the current restrictions by one week rather than two weeks, as he had initially wanted.

Although that was backed by the majority of other ministers, the DUP for the second time in two days deployed its de facto veto mechanism by forcing a cross-community vote – even though the proposal came from another unionist. That meant that his proposal – the third to have been voted on since Tuesday – also fell, putting the executive back to square one.

While ministers discussed what to do there emerged concerning data which showed a reversal in days where case numbers have been falling from the same day a week ago; today new cases were higher than a week earlier.

After the Executive broke up, Alliance Justice Minister Naomi Long then formulated a compromise proposal which essentially married together Mr Swann’s proposal and that of Mrs Dodds by extending the current restrictions for another week but then immediately after that we would move to the relaxations proposed by Mrs Dodds.

That proposal also would have removed the inevitable return to an unresolved political argument next week by essentially agreeing now what will happen over the next few weeks. However no vote was taken on it tonight before ministers called it a night.

The Press Association reported that a paper tabled by Mr Swann today warned ministers that failure to extend the ‘circuit breaker’ by two weeks would “significantly increase” the likelihood of a pre-Christmas intervention.

The paper makes clear that even a two-week extension may not be enough to avoid the need for new measures being imposed ahead of the festive period. PA reported that the paper, which proposed a one-week extension to give ministers more time to develop an agreed approach, warns that hospitals in Northern Ireland are all currently operating “at, close to, or above full capacity”.

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