Notes 'missing' after Storey funeral published

Notes from the first Stormont Executive meeting following a former Sinn Féin chairman's funeral, which were once thought to be missing, have now been published.

Seven attempts were made by the Covid-19 inquiry team to source the minutes from 2 July 2020 following the large-scale funeral of Bobby Storey.

The notes were then submitted to the Covid Inquiry earlier this month..

The then-deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill and other Sinn Féin ministers had attended the funeral of Mr Storey.

They had faced criticism from other parties over their attendance at the funeral.

Some Executive colleagues had claimed that the gathering was in breach of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions at that time.

In the hand-written published notes on Tuesday evening, Ms O'Neill claimed the funeral was within the regulations.

She added there had been "no dilution" of the public message "in her mind".

In the aftermath of the controversy surrounding her attendance, Ms O'Neill said she would never apologise for attending the funeral of a friend.

But on Tuesday she told the Covid Inquiry that she was sorry for going and for "the hurt that's been caused".

The Executive meeting took place on 2 July 2020, two days after the funeral which was attended by large crowds.

The notes show that Ms O'Neill told Executive colleagues that the funeral's online stream had been watched by about 250,000 people.

She said the cortege, including herself, numbered 30 people, with stewards lining the route to prevent people joining it.

They had worked with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), she said, and masks were used, along with hygiene measures and social distancing. She added "no offence intended."

Alongside the then-DUP first minister Arlene Foster, Ms O'Neill was jointly responsible for leading the Northern Ireland Executive's response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Ms Foster said "huge damage" had been done following the funeral and that she could not share a platform that day with Ms O'Neill giving out a joint public message.

That situation then continued for about two months.

Arlene Foster's DUP colleague, the former economy minister Diane Dodds, called the funeral "absolutely disgraceful" and said it was "undermining" the work of the Executive.

She added that the deputy first minister needed to "express remorse".

The Sinn Féin finance minister Conor Murphy said he attended the funeral, but was not in the cortege.

Mr Murphy said the rules around funerals had been relaxed and any breach of regulations was a technicality.

Ms O'Neill's apology to the Covid Inquiry comes almost four years after the event was held.

Meanwhile, despite Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill publicly falling out over the Bobby Storey funeral, new WhatsApp messages released by the Covid-19 inquiry reveal that their once difficult political relationship appeared to end on good terms.

The day before her resignation as DUP leader, following an internal party coup, the Sinn Féin vice president sent Arlene Foster a text.

In her message, Ms O'Neill said: "I'm genuinely sorry if you don't get to bow out the way you had planned. Politics is certainly not an easy path".

Arlene Foster replied: "Thanks Michelle. Just felt you should know."

Three weeks later the former DUP leader thanked Michelle O'Neill for a card and gifts, prompting the reply: "You are welcome. Take care."

Michelle O'Neill also congratulated the former DUP leader in a text on being awarded £125,000 in damages after a defamatory tweet by TV presenter Dr Christian Jessen in May 2021, the day before she resigned.

Dr Jessen tweeted an unfounded claim that the DUP leader had been having an extra-marital affair on 23 December 2019.