Alan Chambers MLA, the Ulster Unionist Party representative on the Health Committee, has described the Finance Minister`s attempt at ‘clarification’ about his incoherent comments on lockdown as feeble.

Mr Chambers said:

“Conor Murphy`s bizarre claim that if it hadn’t been for austerity, Northern Ireland wouldn`t have had to go into lockdown during the Coronavirus pandemic is utterly without foundation and completely incompatible with reality. His feeble attempt at providing ‘clarification’ about his incoherent comments on lockdown, via a tweet, makes the situation worse because he singularly fails to explain why he said what he said in trying to blame the UK Government for lockdown and he has failed to retract the comments he made. Attempting to blame ‘the Brits’ for lockdown is pathetic.

“This wasn`t a one-off. Conor Murphy has form on this. Mr Murphy made similar comments in the Assembly Chamber on 26 May. Mr Murphy said, ‘we have had nine years of austerity, and that is why we needed a lockdown. It is because we have a Health Department that is not able to cope with a significant health crisis.’ For a party that has had so much to say about the response to Covid-19, I would have expected Sinn Fein to have a much better grasp of the situation.

“Northern Ireland needed to bring in lockdown to limit the spread of Coronavirus. Even if there was maximum funding for the Health Service in Northern Ireland we would have still needed lockdown, not only to protect the Health Service, but most importantly to save lives. Countries across Europe and indeed the world were implementing lockdown. Conor Murphy`s own party leader said, on more than one occasion, that we should be following the World Health Organisation`s advice on lockdown, so his failure to retract his original comments run directly counter to what they were saying. More people being infected would have meant more deaths.”

ENDS

Note to Editors:

Hansard from 26 May 2020:

http://aims.niassembly.gov.uk/officialreport/report.aspx?&eveDate=2020/05/26&docID=301336

“Alan Chambers went on to criticise the fact that the Health Department did not have enough money to begin with. That is quite true. We have had nine years of austerity, brought in by the David Cameron-led Government. He may remember the position that his party adopted to secure a David Cameron-led Government, which was to offer its full support. These issues are the consequence of that. In a remarkable act of self-denial, he asked us to "take our blinkers off" and recognise that we got all this money from the British Government. We have had nine years of austerity, and that is why we needed a lockdown. It is because we have a Health Department that is not able to cope with a significant health crisis. It has been underfunded for years.”