Statement by TUV leader Jim Allister:
“If Mrs Foster accepts this she is clearly putting expediency before principle. O’Neill’s “sorry for you hurt but I didn’t cause it” is breathtaking in its arrogance. It cannot be good enough for anyone who has read the heartbreaking stories which have come into public representatives of the sacrifices others have made during the lockdown.
“Michelle O’Neill has made it clear that she will “never apologise”. She still maintains that she followed the regulations when everyone can see she did not. Regulation 5 (2) (g) is clear. The reasonable excuse to attend a funeral only applies to:
“(i) a member of the person’s household,
(ii) a close family member, or
(iii) if no-one within sub-paragraphs (i) or (ii) is attending, a friend”.
“Many people missed funerals for friends because they complied with the law. But O’Neill wasn’t prepared to miss the funeral of her “great friend Bobby Storey”.
“The obfuscation and selectivity of this statement of non-apology only compounds the situation of the rule-maker as rule-breaker. People can read the regulations. They can see the photographs of O’Neill and many other senior Sinn Fein disregarding the guidance all the rest of us are expected to abide by.”