Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:-
“While I do not question the dedication of some ministers, particularly the Health minister, nor do I question the sincerity and effort of many, the Executive’s collective handling of the easing of lockdown evinces signs of a desire to play the public as supplicants, grateful for their every incremental move so as to extract maximum capital for our ‘great leaders’.
“They announce retail can open and then feed us the extra concession of shopping centres; single households can ‘bubble’ with others, while dangling the prospect of both grandparents next week; a date for caravan parks next week… and so it goes on. All, of course, designed to make us grateful for the restoration of basic freedoms. Making a virtue out of the inevitable has become an art form with this Executive.
“The public has been treated as pawns. Not entitled to know the “best case” scenario, not entitled to know the precise daily ‘R’ rate and teased about next moves.
“Meanwhile steps essential to reopening our economy and schools, like reducing the social distancing restriction to 1m, are parried with one minister espousing same and another holding back. All of which inflates the desired reliance on the First Ministers, who wish to use this crisis to make up lost ground on their credibility. The reality, of course, is that, as with funding, they are but local delivery agents for national decision-makers.”