Statement by TUV Comber Councillor Stephen Cooper:
“The interview with the Chief Constable has only added to the number of significant questions for the PSNI. The public demand and deserve answers from Simon Byrne about any discussions which took place between his officers and Sinn Fein/IRA in advance of what amounted to a display of Provo power on the streets of our capital city in the middle of a pandemic. If charges are finally brought on this matter will we find Sinn Fein members citing a deal with the police as an explanation for why they thought they could act as they did?
“What does it say about Northern Ireland that government ministers can travel to an event at which the law is broken in ministerial cars? What are we to make of how Northern Ireland is being governed when the Chief Constable excuses his officers from enforcing the law there because they feared mass public disorder? How can anyone have confidence in the PSNI process when, six months after the funeral, they still have to interview people who broke the law in full view of the TV cameras? How can the PSNI tell the press that they are preparing a file for the PSNI about an alleged breach of Covid regulations at a church within hours and yet they are still on a go-slow when it comes to Bobby Storey?
“My thoughts today are with the many innocent people who, in deference to the public good and because of respect for the rule of law which the PSNI should be upholding, did not give their loved ones the send-off they would have liked. I think of the families who were denied that shoulder to cry on which would should have been there. And when I think about that I, like every decent citizen in Northern Ireland, am outraged.
“A fundamental in any society is that all should be equal under the law and equally subject to the law. Yet even when it comes to funerals it seems that special rules apply to Republicans. In life and in death it would appear that the powers that be apply different standards to Sinn Fein/IRA than they do to anyone else.”