Sorrys and surprises as O'Neill and Foster face inquiry

It was a tale of two first ministers and a lawyer.

Actually two lawyers but we’ll come to that later.

And since we’re being strictly accurate, one first minister and a former first minister.

Perhaps one of the most surprising things the UK Covid-19 inquiry threw up this week was that Baroness Arlene Foster and Michelle O’Neill parted on good terms.

WhatsApp messages reveal that after the DUP leader was ousted, good wishes were sent her way as well as a card and gifts.

But for much of their time together they seemed reluctant partners.

They would share one more stage this week and it was a difficult experience for both.

Much of that was down to our first lawyer, Clair Dobbin KC, counsel for the inquiry, who seemed to save her most forensic questioning for the two big political witnesses.

But first let’s digress.

The restored Northern Ireland Executive passed a significant milestone this week and hardly anyone noticed.

It survived its first 100 days.

Michelle O'Neill sailed through it all. Until she came to day 101 that is.

Her appearance before the Covid-19 Inquiry seemed a chastening experience.

And it’s hard not to think she has emerged a slightly diminished figure.

But "first minister for all" is a lofty ambition and exacts a price. On Tuesday Ms O'Neill paid it.

Her brazen confidence of almost four years ago - when she said "I will never apologise for attending the funeral of a friend" - was never going to survive its first contact with Ms Dobbin.

The hearings had been, well, a bit tame up until this point.

But from the moment Ms Dobbin locked her sights on Ms O’Neill that all changed.

Ratcheting up a notch - or two. And the first minister's distinctly uncomfortable day had begun.

Ms O'Neill has said sorry before but this was different.

It could be that her party colleague Carál Ní Chuilín left her nowhere to go when she agreed the previous week that she should not have attended the funeral of Bobby Storey.

Or it could be Ms O'Neill had got to this point all on her own. Though most likely Sinn Féin drew up a template that their people followed.

"I am sorry for going and I am sorry for the hurt that's been caused,” said the first minister.

It was much more than was in her statement to the inquiry.

She was asked when she had come to this conclusion. Her answer didn’t convince.

But she wasn't asked if it was Ms Ní Chuilín – or somebody else – who made her mind up for her.

On paper Baroness Foster’s appearance the next day should have been an anti-climax.

After all she didn’t have to apologise for attending a lockdown-busting funeral, but it was anything but.

Over five torturous hours she locked horns with Ms Dobbin who accused her of deflecting by blaming the Department of Health and the system of mandatory coalition for shortcomings in the executive's Covid-19 planning.

“That’s not an answer,” said the lawyer.

"Well, it is an answer. It’s the answer I'm giving to the inquiry," said the former first minister.

And the nadir came when she was accused of sleep-walking into a pandemic.

"Offensive," said Baroness Foster.

A former colleague of hers got in touch to say: “Arlene takes no prisoners".

Brenda Doherty, whose mother was the first woman to die from Covid-19 in Northern Ireland, said Baroness Foster had been “rude and defensive”.

At this point let’s introduce lawyer number two, Brenda Campbell KC, counsel for the Covid19-bereaved families in Northern Ireland.

The final verdict on the executive lead by Michelle O’Neill and Arlene Foster would be hers.

The charge sheet, as follows:

The Bobby Storey funeral was “breathtakingly insensitive”; the DUP’s use of the cross community vote was an “unedifying spectacle”; there was finger-pointing, sectarianism, spin and valuing “political point scoring over political progress” .

That was only the half of it.

Judge Hallett’s report will come in time, Ms Campbell said, but in the here and now she borrowed a phrase from Mo Mowlam, telling our politicians: “Bloody well get on and do it”.

A question you often hear asked is: "What is the Covid inquiry for?"

"Ridding Stormont of any complacency which may be setting in now that it’s survived its first 100 days" probably isn’t the answer.

But it might do for now.