Sinn Féin has refused to confirm if First Minister Michelle O’Neill will apologise for attending veteran republican Bobby Storey’s funeral at the height of the Covid pandemic.
On Wednesday, former Sinn Fein minister Carál Ní Chuilín accepted she should not have attended the funeral which sparked political controversy in June 2020.
Ms Ní Chuilín, who was Stormont’s communities minister in June 2020 said: “I just want to take the opportunity again to apologise to the families who lost a loved one.
“I am very sorry. I absolutely do see the impact and I also recognise that people were more than angry. I accept that and I really am sorry.”
She is the first Sinn Féin politician to go on record expressing regret at attending the funeral. The party has refused to confirm if its vice president will apologise ahead of her appearance before the inquiry next week.
A spokesperson said: “Sinn Féin supports the Covid inquiry in its mission to learn lessons for the future and we are engaging fully and directly with the Inquiry on that basis.”
The funeral sparked political controversy after Ms O’Neill, then deputy first minister, and other Sinn Fein ministers attended despite lockdown restrictions limiting gatherings.
In July 2020 Ms O’Neill ruled out apologising for her attendance saying: “I will never apologise for attending the funeral of my friend.”
Speaking on BBC One’s Nolan Live on Wednesday night Brenda Doherty, whose mother was one of the first victims of the pandemic, said she didn’t want the issue to become a “political football”.
“It was about the people who told me and my sister and the rest of our family that we couldn’t go and properly bury my mum. That’s what it was about,” said Ms Doherty.
“I don’t care who they were burying, I don’t care who arranged it. I was very clear then and I’m very clear now it’s not about the politics, it’s about the people who made the regulations breaking them.
“So that apology and the acknowledgment, because apologies actually haven’t really meant anything to me, but the acknowledgement that they shouldn’t have been there was another step.”
Catriona Myles lost her father to Covid in December 2020 and added: “From my perspective public confidence was just destroyed from then on in, how they sleep at night I’m not quite sure.”
