Coronavirus: Weir defends Poots over Covid-19 'reservations'

Public discussion is needed over NI's coronavirus restrictions, the education minister has said.

Peter Weir told BBC NI's Sunday Politics that "people have a right to express their opinions".

On Friday, Edwin Poots, his DUP colleague and agriculture minister, said he had "grave reservations" about the four-week restrictions.

Later on Friday the five main parties at Stormont urged the public to get behind them.

There was also confusion over whether fans would be allowed to attend sporting fixtures.

The current regulations do not prohibit them, but Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín has said she would prefer games to be played "behind closed doors".

On Sunday, five further coronavirus-related deaths were reported, bringing the Department of Health total to 615.

Another 1,012 people tested positive for Covid-19, 228 people with the virus are in hospital and 30 of them are in intensive care.

Abide by regulations

"What we have is a compromised position," said Mr Weir.

"If the DUP was deciding itself precisely what would happen in Northern Ireland, would this be of exactly the same nature? No it wouldn't. But I think the same would also apply to other parties as well.

"We've got to have that level of debate, while sending out a strong message."

Mr Weir did differentiate between the actions of Mr Poots and Ms Ní Chuilín.

"We saw a distinction on Friday night where we saw the communities minister trying to impose regulations which hadn't actually been agreed," he said.

"I think there is distinction between that and, I suppose, the right of public discourse, the right of public debate."

'Sectarian rabbit hole'

At an online meeting of the Sinn Féin ministerial team on Sunday evening there was an appeal for a collective voice from the executive.

Declan Kearney urged against becoming "distracted by the negative voices of recent days who have effectively tried to take us down a sectarian rabbit hole".

"Our executive has to speak with one voice and then we have to act in concert with maximum levels of leadership across civic society," he said.

Finance Minister Conor Murphy said there needed to be a "similar approach" on both sides of the border.

"We also need to plot a way for people out of this to ensure that lockdown doesn't become a regular feature in relation to this," he said.

"I think that is something that fills all of us with despair," he added.

Dampening down a fire

Peter Weir was doing his best to damp down a fire that Edwin Poots has stuck under the regulations that the executive had just passed.

He talked about the need to compromise, his implication was that that was compromise between the different parties in the executive.

It sounds like what's been going on is a very uneasy compromise within the DUP.

Whilst I know DUP spokespeople have been saying this is all in line with the party, it does seem pretty incoherent to have the party leader out selling this big time on the Thursday and then one of her ministers essentially saying the whole approach is wrongheaded on the Friday.

Edwin Poots represents a significant enough body of the party who are extremely sceptical about tightening the regulations that we're not going to see any type of move against him in the short term.

Arlene Foster doesn't have the authority to do that.

UUP leader Steve Aiken said Mr Poots should consider his position in the executive

Ulster Unionist Party leader Steve Aiken said "collective responsibility" was crucial for working through the pandemic.

Mr Aiken criticised Mr Poots for challenging the executive's decisions on restrictions and claimed the minister had the opportunity at their meeting to "raise his concerns and vote against it and he didn't."

"I'm not the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party but if this was the situation in the Ulster Unionist Party and a minister had gone against the rest of the collective will of the executive, I would be asking him to reconsider his position," he said.

Mr Aiken went on to praise the work of his party colleague, Health Minister Robin Swann, during the pandemic and said he had "full support from the Ulster Unionist Party".

"In a five party mandatory coalition, the fact that we've managed to hold it together and now we're making really difficult decisions - I think that shows that there is indeed support for Robin," he said.