O’neill ‘sorry’ for attending Storey funeral and ‘accepts damaging Executive relations’

FIRST Minister Michelle O’neill has apologised for her controversial attendance at the funeral of IRA man Bobby Storey during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She said she was sorry, “from the bottom of her heart”, for the hurt caused to those who lost family members to the virus.

In evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry, she said she ought to have realised the anger attending the funeral in June 2020 would have prompted.

It came as Ms O’neill, who was Deputy First Minister at the time, faced questioning over the Executive’s response to the crisis.

Ms O’neill was one of several senior Sinn Fein figures who attended Mr Storey’s funeral in west Belfast, despite tight restrictions on public gatherings.

Some Executive ministers felt it undermined the public health messaging at the time.

It also impacted on Ms O’neill’s relationship with then First Minister Arlene Foster to such an extent that the pair briefly stopped doing joint press conferences.

While Ms O’neill previously apologised for any hurt her actions caused, she went further yesterday.

Though in July 2020 she insisted she would never apologise for attending the funeral, she told the inquiry: “I know that my actions also angered the families and for that I’m truly sorry. I am sorry for going [to the funeral] and I’m sorry for the harm that had been caused after [it].”

The First Minister was asked by Clair Dobbin KC, counsel for the inquiry, if she knew beforehand of the anger the funeral would cause.

“I didn’t, but I ought to have,” Ms O’neill replied.

“I’ve said it publicly on a number of occasions about how sorry I am and I am absolutely, from the bottom of my heart, sorry.”

It was put to Ms O’neill by inquiry chair Baroness Hallett that her criticisms of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in relation to so-called “lockdown parties” during the pandemic were “hypocritical”, to which she said: “I don’t think so, because they are two very different things, in

terms of the Boris Johnson approach of partying the whole way through the pandemic and drinking their way through it, to be quite blunt.”

Baroness Hallett responded: “We didn’t find out about the partying until after the pandemic. What you did was to do something the normal bereaved couldn’t do, because you wanted to go to a friend’s funeral. Isn’t saying that what Boris Johnson’s government did was wrong sort of hypocritical?”

Ms O’neill answered: “No, I don’t think so. Because what I did I did under the understanding of the regulations at that time.

“But I do accept, wholeheartedly, that I in some way damaged our Executive relations with colleagues who had been working very hard with me the whole way through.”

Later, Ms O’neill was shown a message exchange she had with Arlene Foster on March 21, 2020, when school closures were being discussed.

In one message, Ms Foster accused Ms O’neill of publicly “undermining” Health Minister Robin Swann and then Education Minister Peter Weir over her calls for schools to be shut.

“If you want to effect change in a policy, you are going completely the wrong way about it,” Ms Foster wrote.

“You are playing politics when things are much too serious. It is hugely disappointing but unfortunately I’m not surprised.”

Ms O’neill replied: “It’s too serious to tolerate incompetence. Things are too slow. Lives will be lost. Start listening.”

The then DUP leader responded: “I hope you are not calling two of your ministerial colleagues incompetent. Naomi [Long] and Robin [Swann] have both raised concerns about your behaviour. You need to be more collegiate.”

Ms O’neill replied: “The department is not serving Robin well. We are not being served well by the civil service. This is a time to knock heads and get them to act with haste. Our nurses are crying out for help to do their jobs. I spoke to many from the Western Trust over this week and they need us to fight for them.”