Northern Ireland’s former health minister has said she was not told about the risks of a pandemic while in office.
Michelle O’Neill headed up the country’s health department between 2016 and 2017 and went on to be Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister between 2020 and 2022. She was repeatedly asked during her evidence-giving at the official Covid inquiry whether she was aware of documents and recommendations relating to pandemic risk and preparedness – including some in need of significant updating.
Chief counsel to the inquiry Hugo Keith KC asked O’Neill what she was told about the risk of an influenza pandemic when she became health minister given that the risk had been identified in 2013 as very high. O’Neill said it would only have come to her attention in relation to Exercise Cygnus, a UK government exercise to test flu pandemic readiness, that happened five months into her tenure as health minister.
