Foster declines to criticise ‘bizarre’ Sinn Féin claim that more cash could have avoided lockdown

Mr Murphy, whose party at the start of the pandemic was pushing for the fastest and toughest lockdown, made the comments in an interview with Good Morning Ulster this morning.

He said that if Northern Ireland had a “robust health service which was well resourced” it could have coped with the pandemic and added: “The reason we had to go into lockdown, and people should understand this, is because the health service has been under-resourced through austerity cuts for many, many years.”

UUP Health Minister Robin Swann – who was publicly savaged by Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill in the early weeks of the crisis – immediately took to the airwaves to reject the accusation, saying that it was something “I take exception to”.

Mr Swann told the Nolan Show: “It wasn’t because our health service wasn’t fit to cope. No health service was fit to cope with what we saw.”

However, Mrs Foster – who after years in which she was the subject of Sinn Fein criticism has been working closely with the party in recent weeks – declined to say anything critical of Mr Murphy.

The DUP leader said that she did not want to be pulled into a “political row” over Mr Murphy’s comments and added: “I think the Executive have worked very well together in a collaborative way around moving out of lockdown.”

Mrs Foster’s former adviser Richard Bullick, however, highlighted that the logic of Mr Murphy’s comments seemed to be that herd immunity would have been possible if the NHS was bigger.

Six hours after his comments, this afternoon Mr Murphy issued a carefully worded tweet which did not withdraw his claim. The tweet said: “Austerity policies have severely impacted on the capacity of Health and Social Care services, here and elsewhere, to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic. For clarity, lockdown has been absolutely necessary to save lives.”

Ulster Unionist MLA Alan Chambers said: “Conor Murphy’s bizarre claim that if it hadn’t been for austerity, Northern Ireland wouldn’t have had to go into lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic is utterly without foundation and completely incompatible with reality.

“His feeble attempt at providing ‘clarification’ about his incoherent comments on lockdown makes the situation worse because he singularly fails to explain why he said what he said in trying to blame the UK government for lockdown and he has failed to retract the comments he made. Attempting to blame ‘the Brits’ for lockdown is pathetic.”

Mr Murphy’s claim that lockdown could have been avoided if the NHS had been properly funded is not the first time he has made similar remarks.

Just over a month ago he told the Assembly: “We have had nine years of austerity, and that is why we needed a lockdown. It is because we have a health department that is not able to cope with a significant health crisis.”

The UUP said that regardless of how well funded the NHS was, the lockdown was key to stopping the spread of the virus and “more people being infected would have meant more deaths”.

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