Covid-19: Almost £8bn spent on NI's response to pandemic

The pandemic led to unprecedented public health measures including mass testing

The total cost of the response to Covid-19 in Northern Ireland was £7.79bn, the Northern Ireland Audit Office has estimated.

Spending by Stormont departments was estimated at £4.94bn, with £2.85bn relating to the costs of UK-wide schemes.

The furlough scheme was estimated to have cost £1.72bn in Northern Ireland.

Furlough involved the government helping to pay the wages of people who could not work due to the pandemic.

The Audit Office is continuing to analyse pandemic-related spending.

Its latest report does not assess the value for money of individual measures.

Auditor General Dorinnia Carville said: "Evaluating the impact of spending, identifying what worked well, or did not work, and building on this insight will help to ensure organisations are well placed to react when faced with other emergencies in the future."

Many businesses were forced to shut for long periods during Covid-19 lockdowns

Almost 75% of the total estimated cost of Stormont initiatives relates to activities across three departments: health, finance and the economy.

The Department of Health spent £1.59bn, the Department of Finance spent £1.08bn on rates relief and other support to businesses, and the Department for the Economy spent just under £1bn on other business supports.

Research from Ulster University published earlier this year suggested that without government support the Northern Ireland economy would have taken an additional two years to recover from the pandemic.

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The Ulster University Economic Policy Centre (UUEPC) constructed a "counterfactual" with no government supports and with all public health restrictions being strictly enforced.

It did this by drawing on previous research by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and others, and by comparing Northern Ireland to economies which had fewer supports.