Cabinet Office briefing meetings were held throughout the pandemic to share information as the UK responded to Covid-19. At a sitting of the Covid-19 Inquiry in Belfast on Monday, lead counsel to the inquiry Clair Dobbin put to Mr Swann that it had been said it was “highly unusual for ministers from Northern Ireland to be invited to attend Cobra”. “I think in hindsight it would have been useful if the invitation had included the first and deputy first ministers even from those early points as well,” he said. “As we work our way through the pandemic, it was often that I was there along with them and other meetings as well. In those early stages it was delegated to me to attend at that point.”Mr Swann described the first meeting he attended in January 2020, with Northern Ireland’s chief medical officer Sir Michael McBride, chaired by then health secretary Matt Hancock, as “very challenging”.

Source: The Herald May 13, 2024 11:15 UTC