Arlene Foster calls on deputy to step down in social distancing row

A mass gathering to honour a dead IRA leader in Belfast that allegedly broke social distancing rules has provoked a destablising row in Northern Ireland’s power sharing government.

The first minister and Democratic Unionist leader, Arlene Foster, has called on her coalition partner Michelle O’Neill, of Sinn Féin, to temporarily resign as deputy first minister over the controversy.

In a letter on Thursday morning, Foster suggested O’Neill stand down from the post while an investigation was carried out over scenes at the funeral of Bobby Storey in west Belfast on Tuesday. O’Neill has insisted she will not resign.

Around 1,800 mourners gathered to honour the IRA figure, who was part of a mass republican prisoner break-out from the Maze jail in 1983. Unionists, the cross-community Alliance Party and the rival nationalist SDLP said the numbers were a clear breach of social distancing rules established during the pandemic lockdown.

Relatives of people who died during the lockdown and who could not hold traditional funerals for their loved ones also took to the airwaves and social media to denounce O’Neill’s decision to attend the event.

The deputy first minister was also criticised for posing for a selfie with two men in Milltown cemetery, Belfast, where tributes were paid to Storey at the IRA’s plot.

Under the rules set down by the Northern Ireland executive, which is jointly led by Foster and O’Neill, a maximum of 30 people should attend a funeral. The rules also stipulate that friends of the deceased should only go if there are no members of the immediate family in attendance.

It is understood that up to 100 people went to the requiem mass for Storey inside the church.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP’s leader at Westminster, said: “In light of the failure of Sinn Féin yesterday to grasp the opportunity to apologise, it is our view that the deputy first minister must now step back from her role while these matters are investigated by the PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland].”

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Donaldson added that the Storey funeral had “sent out a very, very bad message to people in Northern Ireland”.

Sinn Féin said today that the deputy first minister’s action was in line with social distancing. The party accused O’Neill’s critics of political point scoring.

“The organisers did everything they could to ensure regulations were met and if it was not for the plan that organisers put in place with the PSNI to limit numbers then there would have been even bigger numbers in attendance,” a Sinn Féin spokesman said.

O’Neill’s graveyard selfie happened in a “blink of an eye” as she was leaving the cemetery, the party added.