A politically divided Stormont Executive led to “chaotic decision-making” during the Covid-19 pandemic, a public inquiry has concluded.
Baroness Heather Hallett’s report on government responses to Covid found that the political reaction to the public health emergency in Northern Ireland was “deeply divided along political lines and beset by leaks, leading to an incoherent approach”.
The report published on Thursday focuses on the core political and administrative decision-making across the UK in response to the pandemic.
Political leaders were involved in significant decisions including how lockdowns were introduced, the closure of businesses and schools, and restrictions on public gatherings.
It concluded that the response in Northern Ireland, like the rest of the UK, was “a repeated case of too little, too late”.
The report said “the devolved administrations were too reliant on the UK government to lead the response”.
It said that in Northern Ireland, as in Scotland, Covid-19 was only discussed under “any other business” in meetings in late February 2020.
The report said: “It should have been equally apparent to the First Ministers and deputy First Ministers of the devolved administrations that, by this point, Covid-19 was the most pressing issue facing their governments.”
Examining the response to the second Covid wave in autumn 2020, the report said: “In Northern Ireland, politically divided Executive Committee meetings led to chaotic decision-making.
“A four-week circuit breaker was introduced on 16 October 2020, despite advice that a six-week intervention was needed.”
The report said the circuit breaker “ultimately proved inadequate”.
It added: “In the weeks that followed, Executive Committee meetings were deeply divided along political lines and beset by leaks, leading to an incoherent approach in which the circuit breaker restrictions were extended for one week, then lapsed for one week, before being reintroduced for two further weeks – with the one-week lapse in restrictions correlating with a 25% increase in cases.”
When examining decision-making, the report said: “Coordination of the Northern Ireland Executive’s response was weakened by the operational independence of departments and decision-making was marred by political disputes.”
