Northern Ireland lockdown easing plan criticised for having no reopening dates

Northern Ireland politicians and business leaders have criticised the executive's "clear as mud" roadmap out of lockdown for failing to list dates when Covid-19 restrictions might be lifted.

The executive on Tuesday set out its "Pathway Out of Restrictions" as new coronavirus cases continue to fall and pressure on hospitals begins to ease slightly.

But the plan was light on detail and did not feature targets for when regulations could be relaxed as UK prime minister Boris Johnson had done in his announcement for England's lockdown easing last week.

MLAs criticised the document for lacking clarity while industry chiefs said the exclusion of a timetable for lifting restrictions risked some "businesses calling it a day" after months of lockdown.

The deputy minister and first minister accepted the pathway was "not perfect" but defended the decision not to include target dates, saying the executive wanted to take a cautious approach to reopening the economy.

A ministerial foreword in the pathway document, published on Tuesday, said public adherence to the executive's stay at home message had "flattened the curve of infection" and "driven down the R number" and "taken the pressure off our health service."

"But the numbers of people contracting Covid-19 are still too high and we are dealing with the complication of new variants of the virus that spread even more quickly from person to person," the document adds.

"So our pathway out of the restrictions has to be a slow and cautious one because there is still a long way to go in the fight against the virus."

DUP Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart described the plan as "clear as mud" and "difficult to understand". "Don't shoot the messenger," she added in a Facebook post.

Green MLA Rachel Woods said the document looked similar to plans the executive had already published. "The document itself looks like a copy-and-paste job of what was published last May, and that plan wasn't worth the paper it was written on," she said.

Simon Hamilton, chief executive of Belfast Chamber – a group that represents over 500 businesses across the Northern Ireland capital – said the plan "falls far short" of what was expected.

He said: "The executive may have published a 'roadmap' to reopen the economy, but none of us know when this journey will actually start or how long it will take.

"As a plan, this falls far short. Not only are there (no) dates, but there are no clear health targets to move us through the steps."

Mr Hamilton added: "With Northern having its lowest infection rates since September, a hugely successful vaccine rollout and real-life data showing its impact on hospitalisation, people will be bemused at this grossly underwhelming effort from the Executive, which stands in stark contrast to other governments."

Sinn Fein deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill said it was important not to lift lockdown too prematurely.

She said: "We're not going to give people false hope and false dawns around dates that cannot be delivered upon. "The worst thing I think would happen to the business community right now would be that we lift some restrictions and then have to bring them back in again."

DUP first minister Arlene Foster urged the public to be patient. "What we've set out today is a pathway. It's not perfect, nobody is pretending it is, but I think it gives the direction of travel in terms of where we hope to get to because people do need to have optimism," she said.

"That's what I'm focused on, because we certainly cannot go back into a lockdown again."

Northern Ireland's department of health recorded a further two Covid-19 deaths on Tuesday. Hospital inpatients dropped 13 down to 289, while 149 new cases were reported.

Lockdown restrictions are due to be reviewed again on 18 March, according to the pathway document.