Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster to appear before Covid Inquiry

The Northern Ireland First Minister, Michelle O’Neill, and former First Minister Arlene Foster will appear before the Covid Inquiry on Wednesday.

The sitting in London will concentrate on Stormont’s approach to testing, tracing and isolation during the pandemic.

It will also hear from the former Ulster Unionist health minister, Robin Swann, and Chief Medical Officer Michael McBride.

The inquiry was ordered by the then prime minister Boris Johnson in May 2021 and public hearings began almost two years ago.

Hearings are due to end next February.

O’Neill, who became first minister in February 2024, faced claims she broke coronavirus guidelines in June 2020 when she attended the funeral of leading Irish Republican Bobby Storey.

She had previously apologised for the hurt caused by her actions and any undermining of the public health message, but not for her attendance.

She once said she would “never apologise for attending the funeral of a friend”.

But at the Covid Inquiry in May 2024 she said: “My actions compounded the hurt, my actions also angered families. I am sorry for going and I am sorry for the hurt that’s been caused.”

When asked by the chair, Baroness Hallett, if she was aware of the hurt and anger at the time, O’Neill replied: “I didn’t and I ought to have.”

Those hearings in Belfast also revealed the anger felt by former chief medical officer Michael McBride at how the executive had behaved during the pandemic

The inquiry was shown a text message sent by him which described it as “politics at its worst” and that they should “hang their heads in shame”, although he did not refer to anyone in particular.

Baroness Foster, the former Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader, was first minister during the pandemic.

When the inquiry met in Belfast last May she rejected suggestions the executive had “sleepwalked” during the pandemic.

In reply to a claim by Clair Dobbin KC that it was “really difficult” to understand why basic response plans were not activated by the time it was declared, she said the idea “we would expose constituents to this in a wilful way is frankly offensive”.

She said she “totally and absolutely” rejected the claim, as the executive had been determined to work for the people of Northern Ireland.

The former first minister insisted the executive had been receiving advice from health officials, and that the Department of Health was taking the lead on the initial response to the virus.

Baroness Foster was Northern Ireland’s first minister from 2016 to 2017 and during the pandemic from January 2020 until she resigned on 14 June 2021.

She was leader of the DUP from 2016 to 2022.

She told the inquiry she accepted responsibility for how the executive handled the Covid pandemic, saying Northern Ireland should have locked down sooner than it did to prevent more deaths.

But she added: “We felt we had time and we didn’t have time, and that’s a source of great regret.”

It was, said Baroness Foster, the most difficult time of her political career.

The inquiry also heard Baroness Foster questioned about her party’s controversial use of a cross-community vote mechanism in autumn 2020 to prevent some Covid rules from being extended.