Health Minister Robin Swann has said an executive meeting in November 2020 on Covid rules was among the “lowest days” he’s ever experienced in politics.
He told the UK Covid-19 inquiry the behaviour and leaking of the meeting in “live time” was wrong.
The meeting happened 9-12 November 2020 when NI was experiencing a second surge in Covid cases.
Mr Swann criticised the DUP for deploying a cross-community vote to block some restrictions being extended.
He told the Covid inquiry: “From my time in politics there have been some highs and lows – but those four days were the lowest I’ve ever experienced in politics, in regards to the behaviour… and how those meetings were actually portrayed.”
He said that while the deployment of a cross-community vote was a legal tool available to parties at the executive, he questioned whether it was “morally right”.
It is a mechanism that can be deployed on any issue in the executive, if three or more ministers ask for a vote to be taken on that basis.
It was originally designed to protect minority rights, but effectively gives parties with enough ministers a veto.
“The fact I, as a unionist minister, was bringing forward a recommendation that was then subject to a vote by another unionist party steps outside the rationale as to what that mechanism was created for,” said Mr Swann.
He said the period was particularly challenging and that it allowed people who were looking an excuse not to follow Covid rules a reason, as the executive was not “joined up”.
He also told the inquiry that the attendance of senior Sinn Féin politicians at the controversial funeral of republican Bobby Storey in June 2020 meant the executive lost confidence of the public.
But he welcomed an acceptance from Sinn Féin MLA Carál Ní Chuilín that she should not have attended the funeral in her capacity as a minister.
