Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“When the current set of restrictions were imposed people made bookings in good faith for when they would end. Businesses in turn accepted them. Small wonder then that today my office has been contacted by hairdressers, beauticians, bed and breakfast owners and hotels all of whom have appointments and guests for tomorrow. Only today have they learned that the current restrictions were never going to expire at midnight tonight but 24 hours later.
“To top it all, today many have received emails telling them that their applications to the government support scheme may take five weeks or more to process.
“Every single party round the executive table should hang its head in shame at the situation in which they have placed business.
“This pandemic has highlighted like never before that Stormont is not fit for purpose.
“People’s lives and livelihoods are literally being held to ransom by the same system which has brought us a political crisis every year on welfare reform, policing, justice, Irish language, RHI and a host of other issues. Indeed it seems that every year there is a crisis at Stormont in the lead up to Christmas.
“But this is different. This time out a pandemic is getting the Stormont treatment of horse-trading between parties which wouldn’t be together in office in any other country in the world. Everyone from the self-employed hairdresser who struggles to get by at the best of times to the hotel owner can see that the system which has been sold to Northern Ireland as the solution to all our ills is fundamentally dysfunctional and incapable of delivering for them.
“Whatever one’s take on where the balance should be struck between lives and livelihoods and regardless of one’s constitutional outlook there is growing consensus across the spectrum on the closure of one thing – Stormont’s mandatory power sharing Executive.”