Transcript of Module 2C Public Hearing on 13 May 2024
(10.00 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, please may I call the first witness for
today.
Mr Robin Swann
MR ROBIN SWANN (sworn).
Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 2C
Ms Dobbin: Can I ask you to give your full name to
the Inquiry, please.
Mr Robin Swann: Robert Samuel Swann.
Lead 2C: You ought to have before you two witness statements, one
of which you signed on 25 January 2023, and I think
which should run to some 93 pages; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct.
Lead 2C: And I think you’ve signed that on the final page; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Are you content that that witness statement is true to
the best of your knowledge and belief?
Mr Robin Swann: I am.
Lead 2C: I think, Mr Swann, you then signed a second witness
statement on 19 March 2024; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: Again, are you content that that witness statement is
true to the best of your knowledge and belief?
Mr Robin Swann: I am.
Lead 2C: Mr Swann, I think it’s right that you were first elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2011; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: And you were re-elected in 2016, 2017 and 2022?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct.
Lead 2C: And I think during your time as a member, you served as the deputy chair or chair on a number of Assembly committees, and that from April 2012 you served as the Ulster Unionist chief whip until you became party leader in April 2017; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: I think it’s also right that you resigned from that position in November 2019, and then became the Minister of Health from 11 January 2020 onwards; is that also right?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: I think it’s right that you remained a minister until 27 October 2022?
Mr Robin Swann: Correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: And I think that it’s right that that period of your being a minister ended whenever the power-sharing arrangements once again collapsed –
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: – in 2022, so you were more or less in position for the entire period that the Inquiry’s considering.
I think it’s right that you are health minister once
again, power-sharing arrangements having resumed quite
recently?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: Just turning then to the role of health minister in
Northern Ireland, it is correct, isn’t it, that it’s
an extremely broad brief, covering, as it does, both
health and social care?
Mr Robin Swann: It does, that’s – I suppose that’s the differential
from other jurisdictions as well, we have that combined
service.
Lead 2C: So again, we’ve asked other witnesses about that, but it
isn’t just the provision of primary and secondary
healthcare, for example, it extends into the oversight
and responsibility of old people’s homes or care homes
as well as the provision of ordinary adult social care
services and children’s social care services as well?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: The whole gamut.
The Inquiry has received an expert report from
Professors Gray and O’Connor, and part of it covers the
role of the health minister in Northern Ireland.
They’ve given evidence that, under the d’Hondt formula,
the health minister is ordinarily one of the positions
that comes near to the bottom of the list of ministerial positions that parties want to take; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That would be correct, apart from my own party. My Lady, the Ulster Unionist party has selected health when it had the option to do that. It would have had the option to select other departments, even in 2011 when we did come back. Even when we restored again at the start of this year there were other departments that could have been available from my party to select, but we selected health because we do believe it is an important department, we do believe we can deliver for the people of Northern Ireland and it’s what we actually want to do, my Lady.
Lead 2C: All right. So not a popular department in terms of other parties, but nonetheless a crucial one in Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: I think it would be fair to say it would be one that would be avoided by other parties, as we’ve seen through the runs of d’Hondt in previous elections.
Lead 2C: All right. I am going come in a moment, if I may, to some of the challenges involved in running the department. I wanted to ask you, though, just by way of general introduction, a bit about the Ministerial Code in Northern Ireland. We haven’t taken anyone to this, we have it on screen.
It’s INQ000262764, and I was just going to start at page 5, if I may.
I think we can see, if we – sorry, that’s just to – I’m sure you’re familiar with it, Mr Swann. If we could go, please, to paragraph 1.4, this is the pledge of office that ministers take. I’m not going to go through all of it, Mr Swann, but ministers pledge:
“(a) to discharge in good faith all the duties of office …”
Correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: Then we see at (c):
“to serve all the people of Northern Ireland equally, and to act in accordance with the general obligations on government to promote equality and prevent discrimination …”
And then:
“(ca) to promote the interests of the whole community represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly towards the goal of a shared future …”
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: If we go to page 9, please, and paragraph 2.3, I just wanted to introduce through you, Mr Swann, the functions of the Executive Committee, and I think that it’s right that this provides guidance, and I should say it’s statutory guidance of course, as to what the role of the Executive Committee is; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: We see that it provides a forum for, at (i), the discussion and agreement on issues which cut across the responsibilities of two or more ministers; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: And, at (iv), to recommend a common position where necessary.
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: At (v), we’ve heard a bit about this, but agreement on budgets and the programme of government as well?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: Thank you.
If we could go over, please, to page 10, and then at (vi):
“discussion of and agreement upon significant or controversial matters that are clearly outside the scope of the agreed programme [of government] …”
So is that a sort of catch-all provision for all of the things that fall outside the programme of government?
Mr Robin Swann: I think it is, my Lady, as well paragraph 2.4 I think is particularly pertinent during the discussions as well, but moving – maybe you’re moving on to that –
Lead 2C: I am.
Mr Robin Swann: – it’s actually about the rigidity, what is cross-cutting but also requires prioritisation and a common purpose.
Lead 2C: Yes, I was going to come to that.
And perhaps if we could just bring that up. Thank you.
So, yes, so it is expressed as a duty, first of all, to bring to the committee anything that cuts across the responsibilities of two or more ministers, requires agreement on prioritisation, and requires the adoption of a common position; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: And again, I think it must be right, Mr Swann, that during the pandemic that was – those were the principles upon which you brought matters related to the response of the pandemic to the Executive Committee?
Mr Robin Swann: Very much so, my Lady. It was actually that paragraph 2.4 which was my core thrust, my driver to actually anything that I was doing in regards to decisions being made that would have affected not – outside of health but the continent and the people of Northern Ireland because any of those decisions and regulations, the recommendations that we were making as Department of Health to the whole Executive were having a wide range or would have a wide-ranging impact, and that’s why I always felt that 2.4 was that – that driving duty that I had was actually to bring everything that required that to the Executive for decision on discussion as well.
Lead 2C: Just before we leave this, I think again (v) is probably quite important, because the duty extends to anything which is “significant or controversial”; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: And perhaps “significant” is the more important of those in relation to the pandemic; would that be correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I would also say that “controversial”, in regards to the fact that we were a five-party mandatory coalition just re-established after three years of there not being a government in Northern Ireland. So in regards to some of the decisions that I was making or the proposals I was making, they were controversial because we were – unlike other voluntary coalitions that are established across these islands, we were an Executive that covered from the left to the right, from Nationalist, Unionist and other, from Socialist to Conservative, my Lady, so it was quite an eclectic mix of ministers. So what may have seemed or not seemed controversial to some was controversial to others, so that’s why I think 2.4, and especially point (v), not just significant but also controversial, it was important to be running things to the Executive.
Lead 2C: I think we’ll come in the course of your evidence perhaps to examine some of the things that were more controversial perhaps than others, but just in terms of again, and I’m just asking you about the general position – I think that can come down, thank you – the Inquiry has heard that although you occupied this central and pivotal position during the response to the pandemic, that you were the lone minister for your party on the Executive Committee. In general terms, can you explain whether that did impact upon your position or the way that it impacted upon your position?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, I think in regards to that, it was a challenging position to be there as the sole Ulster Unionist minister and under even the reconstituted Executive I’m still the sole Ulster Unionist minister, so there are challenges that come with that position, but from a personal reflection I actually think entering the pandemic it was a strength, because, as has been already laid out in my political history, I didn’t hold either a leadership position within my party at the point I took up minister, so I wasn’t, I suppose, bound by the constraints of having to answer to party political pressures from outside, my other – other Executive colleagues tend to hold party positions as well, but being the sole minister in there I think allowed me to step outside some of the constitutional challenges that faced the two larger parties, where at times they could have been seen to be more antagonistic or – especially in regards to where they looked for, I suppose, their ultimate direction in regards to that. There were challenges, I think as has already been mentioned, whereas we had the tendency – Sinn Féin did take a look and keep an eye on what was happening in the Republic of Ireland, and likewise the DUP were focused on what was happening in Westminster, whereas, being bound by neither of those, I believe I was able to take a direction which best suited the response in Northern Ireland.
Lead 2C: Maybe we’ll come on to this in a bit more detail in a little while, but did you perceive that your Executive colleagues who had, who held those sorts of positions were then under political pressure in terms of factors external to the Executive Committee or because of the positions that they held?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, I do believe that in regards to other ministers coming from those bigger parties, those bigger groupings as well, had to look to party structures and party guidance. Other ministers holding actually party leadership positions also had to be conscious of what was going on elsewhere, which I felt I was unencumbered by that, as the structure of my party, the way we work, in regards to the autonomy that is actually given to some of our ministers, or given to our ministers.
Lead 2C: We’ll look at some specific examples, perhaps, you’ve characterised it as a strength, but did it also present challenges to your position that you had no colleagues on the committee?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, it did in regards to, I had no party colleagues as well, but in my statement I actually refer that I felt well supported by my other Executive colleagues, especially in the early days, and now I’ve seen from other evidence and some statements as well that that may not have been the entire perception through the pandemic as well, but when it came to how I personally felt within, as an Ulster Unionist minister within the Executive, it was a lonely position at times, it was a challenging position at times, but I think it was one that I believed at the time that I did have the support of my other ministers – ministerial colleagues in doing what we had to do.
Lead 2C: All right. I’m going to come on, and I will take you through some of the material I think to which you’ve referred, but again, just focusing on some of the generalities, perhaps, to begin with, Ms Naomi Long, who was a minister during that period, has identified some of the difficulties that she perceived she and Minister Mallon faced at the time, they not having colleagues either, although obviously they were in a different position from you, because you were driving much of the response. But let me just put some of the points that she made to you, and ask you if you recognise them.
What she has said is, first of all, that she became concerned that there was sometimes a pre-negotiation between the First Minister, the deputy First Minister and you about the recommendations that would be put to the Executive Committee, so in other words that a pre-negotiation effectively conditioned what came before the Executive Committee.
Now, there may be good reasons if that was the case, but is that correct, was there a process of negotiation –
Mr Robin Swann: No, I wouldn’t classify it as negotiation. I think, as elsewhere, in other jurisdictions, prior to – I think it was actually June when the Executive Office picked up the responsibility of bringing papers to the Executive meetings in regards to recommendations there would have been pre-meetings where I would have engaged with the First and deputy First Minister in regards to what we thought was – what was needed, what was going to be required for us, they drafted the paper then, because those recommendations came forward from June onwards, actually as an Executive paper, rather than a Department of Health paper.
Lead 2C: I’m just going to ask you to slow down perhaps a touch.
Mr Robin Swann: Apologies.
Lead 2C: So, sorry, I’m just going to – I didn’t want to interrupt you, but I could tell you were going a bit fast. Would you mind just repeating the final part of what you said.
Mr Robin Swann: No, sorry, it wasn’t as much as a negotiation in regards to what was going to be presented in papers. From June onwards the recommendations coming to the Executive were Executive Office papers, so they had been brought forward by the First and deputy First Minister, so it was more of us having input and – as to what those recommendations were. And I don’t think that would have been any different from any other jurisdiction or government where health was actually feeding into government recommendations.
Lead 2C: I think what this goes to, and I’ll take you to some other points that she made, I think perhaps overall a sense of, perhaps, a lack of control over what it was that the Executive Committee was being asked to sign off on, but if I could just take you through some of the points that she made sequentially. I think first of all she said that she would regularly hear via the media the options that would be coming to the Executive for decision. Again, is that something that you were conscious of at the time, that that was being, I assume, leaked in advance of the meeting?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, I think it was one of my largest frustrations, in regards to how Executive papers were handled, how they were leaked, when they were leaked, because I often felt that it was actually deliberate, in regards to either conditioning what – the conversation that was going to be had at the Executive, and also to bring stakeholders – you know, when those papers were presented or shared through Executive colleagues, often late, on the night before, that they were already with the media before the Executive had been – had actually met to discuss them. So there was already a narrative established and public discourse established in the media to either support or mostly undermine recommendations that were actually coming to the Executive. So before those conversations could be had, those decisions could be made across the five parties, there was already pre-conceived positioning going into the Executive meeting.
Lead 2C: Can I just explore that a bit more with you. Do you mean that colleagues would leak it to the press because they wanted effectively to whip up a narrative in the media about it, to put ministers under pressure once they were in the Executive Committee?
Mr Robin Swann: Very much so, but, you know – and again, that’s where I expressed my frustration, and I often expressed it at Executive meetings, because what could have been robust meetings confidentially had around an Executive table, likewise they were having across other governments as well, where we could have come to a joint united position and actually presented that to the media, people were already being driven into sides or silos, or – in support of their stakeholders or in their department responsibilities prior to being able to either have the wider conversation or actually receive the presentations or the evidence that was maybe coming from the CMO or the CSA as to why those decisions were actually being asked for or actually recommended.
Lead 2C: The Inquiry has also seen that not only were papers leaked or options leaked to the media but often it seems, perhaps it’s not often, you will know and be able to tell the Inquiry, but meetings were being leaked whilst they were going on as well. Is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That is correct, and again, as I’ve expressed my frustration, frustration was also expressed greatly around the Executive table as well, that at times there was almost a live feed coming from the Executive, especially when it came to those more – challenging those more robust decisions that would have to be taken, that it was actually being portrayed live time on Twitter in regards to who had said what, who was saying what as well. So not only was there political or stakeholder pressure being put on that as well, it was also being clearly portrayed by some about personal positions being taken, who was saying what.
So it left it extremely challenging, I think at times, for some ministers to be clearly open or even step outside the bounds of what would have been their own party position, because there was that perception if they said too much or strayed too far, that it was already going to be received and portrayed in the media as well.
Lady Hallett: Did anybody think to ban the use of personal devices during Executive meetings?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, there was all sorts of attempts made but the fact that our Executive meetings were being held remotely by Zoom there was challenges as well –
Lady Hallett: Of course.
Mr Robin Swann: – about who actually was behind the screen, there were recommendations made by the head of Civil Service at one stage even that while ministers were on they should have their cameras at some time – all times, not just when they were speaking as well so they could be seen. So it was a very challenging time as well in regards to how we managed that, but that frustration of leaks and actually pre-perceiving or pre-trying to diagnose where an Executive would go or take a decision was hardly – highly challenging for all of us.
Ms Dobbin: I think it might be thought, Mr Swann, that that need for confidentiality is so important that, first of all, ministers would all appreciate and understand the importance of that to them as individuals, and that that need – the collective responsibility to provide confidentiality to each other, that, you know, serious questions would be asked and raised about this ongoing leading, but it just seems to have been tolerated.
Mr Robin Swann: I do recall and I referenced it in my statement there was one attempt at a leak inquiry that was undertaken by the then permanent secretary at the Department of Finance, there was questions put out, but there was never, that I can recall, a finding that actually came from that enquiry as well. It became a frustration but I also believe at one point it was so endemic that it became tolerated rather than challenged in regards to what was actually happening.
Lead 2C: I’m going to move on to the next point, if, if I may, that Ms Long made. She said that at times she felt as though decisions had already been taken by the point that her input was sought and that she was rubber stamping discussions that others had had but expected to take full responsibility for them.
Again, is that something you recognise or perhaps understand may have been the perception on the part of other ministers?
Mr Robin Swann: I could see where that may have been a perception, but having worked with Ms Long and the Executive prior to this, I don’t ever think she could be characterised as someone who would simply rubber stamp something that she didn’t agree with. In regards to that she would make her position known, she would make her objections known in regards to that, but I don’t think she would be simply one who would accept something because that was the paper that came forward without challenging it herself.
Lead 2C: In ordinary times I suppose that might be the case but in the context of a pandemic where ministers might feel under enormous pressure to provide agreement quickly, for example, one might see that the perception could be different or the perception of pressure could be different.
Mr Robin Swann: There was pressure – I think there was pressures on us all in regards to coming forward with those recommendations or following them as well, but to perceive that anyone round that table, and my Lady, you’ve met some of our Executive ministers already through this Inquiry, I can assure you I’ve never found any of them shrinking violets, or without personality or strength that wouldn’t make their own opinions or decisions known, that it was simply a rubber-stamping exercise, and I think when I reflect, you know, on that, those hand-transcribed notes, and that was actually something I didn’t know was actually taking place when I was a minister in the Executive, when you see them going on to 30, 40 pages Executive meetings that lasted four, five, six hours, I don’t think it could be perceived as simply a paper being presented, rubber stamped and we moved on to the next item. There was robust decisions around the Executive table in any of the recommendations that were being brought forward.
Lead 2C: All right. I think we might examine some of those – I suppose the decisions that were taken or positions that were adopted in a bit more detail. Again, just staying on the general position, if we may, and moving on to the impact that the absence of power-sharing had had between 2017 and 2020 on the response to the pandemic, so not preparedness, whether or not it continued to impact thereafter. You said on 13 April 2021 that:
“The pre-existing fragilities in our system also undoubtedly hampered our response to the pandemic. They also underline the particular need for caution in Northern Ireland, as we emerge from lockdown.”
And that was a statement, I think, that you made to the Assembly, if I remember correctly.
So you do appear to have been saying there that the response was conditioned by the state that health services perhaps had been left in. Is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, very much so. When I came into office in 2011, after those three years of not having an Executive, not having a minister, my Lady, were actually – at that point we were – industrial action, our nurses were on strike, the first time the Royal College of Nursing had ever taken industrial action. This is before anything we’ve seen across the rest of the UK.
So my key challenge and the Executive’s key challenge was actually ending that industrial dispute on the return of the Executive. That had broken down, I think, relationships across health and social care. But it also had a dramatic effect on the morale of our health staff and our health workers in regards to what needed to be done then. So we did find our health service workers in a very fragile, undervalued state. I think that there’s – what I tried to do when I came in as minister was actually to re-engage with them and build up that and show that not only did I appreciate what they were doing but Northern Ireland appreciated it, but the Executive did as well. And I think we managed to restore that.
Also, in regards to the fragility of our health service, we did three years of single non-recurrent budgets, where civil servants who were in charge at that stage weren’t able to take those large-scale strategic decisions, again because of a single-year budget, non-recurrent, which didn’t allow the change to be made that we needed to be made.
So in regards where we actually came during the pandemic, where there was recommendations to have green site hospitals, where hospitals could actually continue to deliver day case procedures, cancer treatments, part of the reviews that we’ve now been able to undertake – you know, the creation of day case procedure units, overnight stay units, post-aesthetic care units, which have all been developed now, I believe, and this is a personal belief, that we’ve – if we had had a minister in place through those 2017/2020, and the strategic direction, the funding that we’d had, we could have had some of those opportunities, those transformational pieces of healthcare actually in place, so that when it came to the steps that we needed to take during lockdown, we could have had some green site hospitals already established in Northern Ireland where we could have designated those for the procedures that we needed to do, that were normal red flag emergency procedures, while designating other hospitals to be Covid centres and the rest of that. We didn’t have the opportunity to do that in that period between 2017 and 2020 so there was a lot of opportunity lost.
Lead 2C: So is, in effect, what you’re saying, it was that the impact was really on the services, for example, that you had to cancel during the pandemic because you didn’t have sufficient capacity within hospitals and other care in order to be able to do both –
Mr Robin Swann: It was actually in regards to the overall resilience of health and social care, not just in the structures and where we could carry out certain procedures, and those transformational pieces not having been made, but also the resilience of our staff.
Part of the agreement that brought the Executive back in January 2011, and, my Lady, New Decade, New Approach, which was negotiated or presented by the Irish and British governments, was actually one of the targets and it was actually another 900 nursing training places over three years. So that was a clear indication that during 2017/2020, that we had under-recruited, we’d under-trained, to a point that our health service actually needed that further injection of additional training places. So there was an indication of that need.
So the fragility just wasn’t how we were able to react there, it was about that lack of investment in our core service, that lack of investment in our healthcare workers. And that had been ten years in the making, my Lady, it just wasn’t overnight.
Lead 2C: All right. Now, obviously we’ve focused on healthcare services. When you made that speech, when you addressed the Assembly, you talked about the “system”. Were you also talking about social care as well or were you focusing on health, or do the same considerations apply as regards –
Mr Robin Swann: It was the same considerations, and I also at one point, in regards to – I think it was when I addressed one of the health committees at one point, I actually referred to social care and our domiciliary care as our Cinderella service. It was – it had been one that I believe had been undervalued, underrepresented in regards to the finance, the input and the support, especially of the key workers in it as well, because, my Lady, it’s a workforce that isn’t as unionised as our other recommendations as well – or our other health facilities or other health services as well. So it was, I believe, and I still do, one of the – again, moving forward, one of the things when I came back in as minister again was actually to put an injection of £70 million this time into our social care services to make sure that we could bring those workers up to a living wage level as well.
So this was about steps that should have been taken, could have been taken, had we had ministers in place at 2017/2020 or even still in the past two years as well.
Lead 2C: Northern Ireland obviously has an integrated health and social care system as well. The Bengoa report in 2016 had effectively said that that integration was illusory, that it didn’t really amount to much in practice or the benefits of it weren’t seen in practice. Is that something that you agree with?
Mr Robin Swann: I think that when Bengoa actually set that out, there was a transformational piece (inaudible) workstream (inaudible) review of our social care workforce in regards to how we could actually strengthen it. It hasn’t. The reform of adult social care was actually something I launched prior to leaving in 2022 in regards to how that could be changed, how it could be strengthened, and it was part of the driver as to where that £70 million actually came at the start of this year.
In regards to some of the recommendations that were made coming out or coming through the pandemic, there was actually the establishment of a social care collaborative forum where we were bringing together providers and the trade unions and other workers as well so we could make sure that those – that section of our healthcare service could be supported.
The Bengoa I think highlighted the issue that I think many recognised, and when I referred to our social care workers – our social care service as that Cinderella service, that was the perception I got when I came in as minister in 2021 in regards to what work needed to be done, really, to boost that.
Because, my Lady, with the benefit of having a social care or an integrated system, one of the strengths that I believe, if we truly empowered and enforced it, is when we look at that flow of patients through the entirety of our health service – the pressure that we see in our emergency departments currently is because we can’t move patients quickly enough on to a hospital ward, we can’t move patients on to a hospital ward because we can’t move those patients who are in a hospital ward quickly enough out either to be supported by a domiciliary care package or into a care home as well. So it’s about that integration that I actually think is a strength to our system, if it worked well, was properly supported.
Lead 2C: I think, just coming back to January 2020 and the overall state of the system in Northern Ireland, is the Inquiry correct to proceed on the basis that the supposedly integrated approach in Northern Ireland didn’t really afford any benefit at that stage?
Mr Robin Swann: Actually, there was benefits in regards to how we could actually utilise – you know, we saw pressures on workforce, especially in domiciliary care homes, and I think because of the interconnected – between trusts and care homes, we were actually able to see where nursing and healthcare workers would actually be able to – re-purposed from our secondary care, from hospitals, actually, into care homes, to make sure they were properly staffed and supported as well.
So when we put out our workforce appeal, it was actually to look where people – and actually some – actually a large cohort of retired nurses came back into the workforce appeal and were actually laying – put into care homes who were struggling to staff as well.
It also enabled us to get our care homes as part of the PPE supply chain a lot, I think, quicker than other areas. Not entirely in regards to the quantum that we currently had, but also to make those delivery stream lines – or those delivery processes a lot easier and a lot more streamlined.
It also, I think, allowed us to be more agile in regards to especially when it came to vaccinations and the vaccination scheme. We were the first part of the United Kingdom able to get vaccines into care homes, we did that on the first day, as well as delivering to the general public as well. So that interconnectedness, although not perfect, I think also strengthened what we were able to do.
Lead 2C: All right, I think care homes is a separate topic that I’ll come back and ask you about. So some benefits there of integration, but again, in terms of the condition of health and social care services in January 2020, how is it best to characterise those? Is saying that they were extremely precarious or fragile putting it too high, or how would you characterise it?
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t think that puts it too high at all, I think it was a service that was fragile, it was undervalued, had been under-supported, and it needed the recognition of an Executive actually saying health was a priority that not only we were going to invest in but we were going to see as a strategic response to what we needed to do across Northern Ireland.
So we came back in 20 – and this was even pre-pandemic, there was a focus on our health service in its entirety to bring it up to standard as where it had been neglected.
Lead 2C: All right. I’m going to – sorry, I thought you were going to ask something, my Lady.
Lady Hallett: No, no.
Ms Dobbin: I’m going to move on, if I may, Mr Swann to a different but related topic, I’m not going to take you to these documents because I don’t think you saw them at the time, but if you do want to see them I can bring them up on screen. You’ve addressed them in your witness statement, so these are not new documents, but the Inquiry knows that, for example, on 23 January 2020, an official at the Executive Office provided a submission to the TEO addressing a critical lack of resources in the civil contingencies branch in Northern Ireland.
Now, first of all, were you aware at the time that there were serious concerns or issues within civil contingencies in Northern Ireland about lack of resource or capability?
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t, my Lady, in regards just to the – I suppose, the extent as to what was actually – the challenging point at that stage as well, in regards to it, I don’t know what document you are referring to in regards to that but there are other documents before we move on that I would like to refer to in regards to that.
Lead 2C: All right. I will ask you about those. I just want to focus on three quite important ones, first of all, to ask if you were aware of them. The other was a futures report that had been written in autumn 2019 that made 85 separate recommendations about civil contingencies capability in Northern Ireland. Do you recall whether or not you were made aware of that whenever you took up office?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s not a document was ever brought to my attention, and I suppose to acknowledge, as well, that civil contingencies, that branch CCPB(NI) actually sits within the Executive Office not within the Department of Health, so even in the first day brief I don’t think it would have been something that would have been brought to my attention.
Lead 2C: All right, and the other document that I wanted to ask you whether you were aware of is a paper that was sent to the TEO departmental board in February 2020 that set out to the board that civil contingencies arrangements in Northern Ireland hadn’t been reviewed for 20 years, and wanted to commission the review to ensure that effective arrangements were in place to enable the Executive to support wider citizens and wider society in the event of an unforeseen emergency event or situation.
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t aware at the time. I am now, through papers that have been provided to the Inquiry.
Lead 2C: All right.
In terms of, and we will see obviously that the Department of Health became the lead department very quickly in Northern Ireland in response to the pandemic, it might be thought surprising that you weren’t aware or didn’t know that there were those concerns about the overarching infrastructure of civil contingencies in Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, having read this, I suppose as a Minister of Health, I always expected those processes, those parts to be in place, they were outside or outwith my remit, so there are some, I suppose, worrying and startling facts that have been presented now to me in regards to what was actually the practicality and I think, my Lady, if I do have your permission, in regards to the documents that have been presented as well, there was also an exchange that has come to light in regards on
Lead 2C: Well, if you –
Mr Robin Swann: – useful.
Lead 2C: – perhaps explain what it is that the exchange is that you’re referring to.
Mr Robin Swann: It’s an exchange between Bernie Rooney to Chris Stewart and then picked up by the head of the Civil Service. It’s where myself and the Chief Medical Officer actually visit – follow up in regards to what should have been the hub, where – the exchange goes:
“Minister Swann and Dr McBride called in to brief me post COBR. They are going to contact David Sterling to request ramping up the [Northern Ireland] hub to support the Executive!”
A response then from David Sterling to Chris Stewart, and this was on 4 March, noted:
“Thanks. We’ll have to be smart about how we respond to this. A flat note to DoH will likely get back to FM and dFM and will be received badly.”
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: So it’s not only at that stage, my Lady, in my remit, it’s when I was out – when myself and the Chief Medical
Officer visited. Now, this is the start of March that
there was also an indication that they knew that they
weren’t match ready at that point, but they were more March, I can give a reference number if that’s … 4 concerned about actually telling us that they weren’t
ready, not that they needed to do something, but that
concern would actually get back to FM and dFM.
Lead 2C: All right. You’ve jumped quite a long way ahead.
Mr Robin Swann: Apologies.
Lead 2C: Because I was going to come back and ask you about that.
The Chair knows the email to which you were referring,
because it was put to Sir David Sterling, and I was
going to ask you about that and about the point in time
when you started perhaps communicating to colleagues
that there was a need for a broader stand-up, but I want
to go through the picture that was building before then
so that we can put that in context. So I will come back
to it, but if we could maybe take it steadily through
the chronology until we get there.
In fact I wanted to start, then, with what I think
is probably the point in time at which you raised
Covid-19 to your officials to ask them about it, because
I think – it would appear you raised it before anybody
raised it with you. But perhaps if I show you that, and
I can ask you about it.
It’s INQ000425549, and it’s page 4, the last email in the chain. So I think this is 22 January, and it would seem that you’re the person asking your officials if they could brief you about Covid-19. And I think, then, “Coronavirus” – if we could scroll up, please, to the reply. Just slightly up, please, and to the reply above, please.
I think we can just see, so this is an email from the Chief Medical Officer on 22 January, and I think that his – he, I think, refers to giving you an oral briefing.
Then second paragraph says:
“I fully anticipate we are likely to see suspected and/or confirmed cases in the UK and the [Republic of Ireland] in coming weeks. Restrictions in travel and flights from Wuhan may delay.”
So, I mean, it would certainly appear from that reply that he was proceeding on the basis that it wasn’t a question of if, but when, so there was no question about it. Do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: I agree, yeah.
Lead 2C: All right, thank you, that can come down.
I think that you then very quickly, and perhaps this was why you were seeking a briefing, attended COBR on
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yeah. That was the start, yeah.
Lead 2C: Perhaps if we could just have a look at what was
discussed that at that, but first, if I could ask you,
were you invited to attend COBR? How does it work in
Northern Ireland in terms of it involving you in those
kinds of bodies?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, again from my understanding from papers that
I’ve now received and read, the invitation came – comes
through to or came through to the Executive Office,
there was an exchange then between, I’m not sure whether
the First and deputy First Minister were involved, but
there’s definitely an exchange between the head of Civil
Service and my permanent secretary, who suggested
I would be the best minister to attend at that point.
So that was how the invitation was extended to me at
that point in regards to that first COBR meeting.
Lead 2C: That’s really what – I wanted to ask you about that,
whether or not it necessarily had to be you or
exclusively you or whether or not, for example, other
ministers could have attended alongside you?
Mr Robin Swann: I think other ministers could have attended, my Lady,
I think actually in my statement I say that I think in
hindsight it would have been useful that if the
invitation had have included the First and deputy First January? 24 Ministers, even from those early points as well. As we
worked our way through the pandemic it was often that I was there along with them at other meetings as well, whereas, you know, at those early stages it wasn’t about, I think, it solely had to be me. I think the invitation initially came through to CCPB(NI) and the Executive Office and HOCS in regards, and then it was delegated to me to attend at that point.
Lady Hallett: At that stage COBR was being chaired by the Health Secretary –
Mr Robin Swann: Yes, Matt Hancock, yes.
Lady Hallett: – of the UK Government?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Ms Dobbin: If we just look, please, at the COBR notes, INQ000056214.
If we just look at page 1 to orientate ourselves, we can see that it’s Friday 24 January, and at this stage I think a few other ministers were attending alongside and then other ministers were dialling in.
If we just scroll down a bit, please, and keep scrolling down, please, I think we can see that the first CRIP had been circulated as well, and the escalation paper. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: And would you have read those papers beforehand, Mr Swann, or would your officials have read them? How did it work?
Mr Robin Swann: They were shared with the Executive Office, CCPB and then eventually through my own department as well, so I would have had sight of them, yeah.
Lead 2C: All right. I think this is probably not controversial, but I think that you were the only minister from Northern Ireland in attendance, I think we can see that if we just carry on scrolling up.
Thank you. We can see, I think, that those were your counterparts in the other devolved administration. Thank you. If we just scroll down, please, again, I don’t think at that stage anyone else attended; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: It was just you?
Mr Robin Swann: It was just us.
Lead 2C: I won’t go through the whole of this, but I don’t think – well, it’s certainly been said that it was highly unusual for ministers from Northern Ireland to be invited to attend COBR; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct.
Lead 2C: And how much significance did you attach to the fact, first of all, that COBR had been instituted and second that you had been asked along with your counterparts to attend?
Mr Robin Swann: At that point I didn’t know it was unusual for Northern Ireland ministers not to attend especially when a COBR was called at that point. I’ve since found out that it was the fact that the Scottish and Welsh counterparts were there as well. I did find these, I suppose, they were challenging at that stage, my Lady, because this was pre-Zoom, pre-online virtual meetings, so we were dialled in, so it was very much, it almost felt like we were there as observers listening to what was actually going on, rather than actually being full participants as to what was actually happening round the table.
Lead 2C: The Inquiry has seen that the Northern Ireland civil contingencies central arrangements appear to foresee that they play a part in COBR so, in other words, that those arrangements feed into COBR and it might be thought therefore that they’re an analogue to COBR in Northern Ireland. Did you have any understanding or had anyone briefed you at that stage about the civil contingencies arrangements in Northern Ireland? I mean, the overarching ones rather than Department of Health ones.
Mr Robin Swann: Not so much in regards to the overarching one, but I was aware that there was a CCPB(NI), a TEO official who was in attendance at these meetings. My assumption was that they were there from that section, from TEO, to make sure there was a direct feed-in from what was happening in COBR – because, as you say, that – not direct analogy across from COBR –
Lead 2C: It’s not.
Mr Robin Swann: – and what was happening. But there was, I suppose, a synergy there.
Lead 2C: I don’t think anyone from TEO was at that meeting, I think we see in due course that Ms Rooney starts to attend, but I think just going back to my question, I was asking you if you had any understanding at that time about those central arrangements or whether or not you would have been dependent, for example, on the TEO informing you about them or informing other ministers about them?
Mr Robin Swann: The structure, the invite, from my understanding from the beginning, actually came through TEO –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – in regards to attending these. So that was the formal arrangement in regards to that.
Lead 2C: Again, just coming back to whether or not you did have any knowledge about the overarching civil contingencies arrangements, so, for example, the 26 protocol, is that something you would have known anything about?
Mr Robin Swann: Not at this initial point in regards to, only being in office a matter of days at that point as well, so it wasn’t something that was front and centre of a first-day brief.
Lead 2C: Yes, I think that’s really what I wanted to understand, whether or not it was any part of your initial, you know, that first period of time that you had in office, that you would get a briefing about civil contingencies?
Mr Robin Swann: Not to the extent of that. There is a part of my first-day brief that covers civil contingencies but not to the extent of overarching structures and how they interact with – especially at COBR level.
Lead 2C: All right, and at this stage, coming towards the end of January, you hadn’t been given that briefing?
Mr Robin Swann: Not at that point.
Lead 2C: All right. Again I’ll come to deal with how, what happened as time moved on.
I mean, obviously we’ve seen from the 2016 protocol and also I know that there’s an emergency response plan that sits within the Department of Health, and that both of those documents set out the concept of a lead department.
Was there actually any decision that health would be the lead department or was it just automatic because this was a pandemic, potential pandemic situation at that stage?
Mr Robin Swann: I think, and again from the documents, it is about health being the lead department for the health response in regards to a pandemic, so I think that structure was understood and that’s where, you know, our emergency response plan kicked in at that point, so there’s no designation and I don’t think there is, you know, that the Department of Health would lead the Executive response because, my Lady, I think that would be highly challenging in Northern Ireland for that ability, for any health minister, never mind me as an Ulster Unionist health minister, to actually step into the likes of the Department of Economy and actually start to direct what should be happening there in regards to business supports.
So my reading, my belief, and in regards to my understanding is that health was the lead department for the health response in regards to the pandemic.
Lead 2C: All right. I think we will see that you were the lead department in terms of the 2016 protocol, in other words you were the lead department for the response to the pandemic. That doesn’t mean that you tell other departments what to do, rather that you’re generally leading the response. Do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I think it’s in regards to a lead department able to be – are able to identify and manage the risks in the area of our responsibility. I don’t think we would have had the expertise to step into other departments to say: these are the risks you need to be considering specifically in regards to taking it forward. So it’s how that overarching piece actually works in regards to tying in a lead department, and I go back to our analogies in regards to Cabinet, you know, we’re talking about COBR and NICCMA, if you look at where TEO, the Executive Office and the Cabinet Office actually sit, it’s about that overarching co-ordination piece.
Lead 2C: I think I understand the point that you’re making, Mr Swann, I also – I think the Inquiry understands the point that you’re making about your limited ability to tell other departments what to do, but I just want to be crystal clear about this, if I may. Do you accept that under the overarching, the central contingency arrangements for Northern Ireland, that the Department of Health was the lead department for the response to the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to as so far as what was in our capabilities and within our powers, but I do believe that the Executive, as I say, when it comes to I suppose that piece of – that recommendation in 2016, it also says there can be more than one lead department in regards to –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – that response, to something as serious as the pandemic as well. So it becomes where the lead actually is taken and overall direction is given from in regards to how actually different departments interact and how different arm’s length bodies interact to make sure we have a coordinated response.
Lead 2C: Forgive me, maybe I’m not asking the question clearly enough. Again, the Inquiry understands that other – there’s not necessarily one lead department, there can be more than one lead department. But in terms of the central contingency arrangement and the provision made for a lead department, do you accept that the Department of Health was the lead department for the response to the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: And as I’ve said in regards to the lead department response for the health outcomes or the health responses to the pandemic, yes, and that’s why I believe my officials, my permanent secretary were engaging with their counterparts as to alerting them of the seriousness of what was coming that we saw from a health point of view so they could put their responses into place as well, so that they could step up to be – and take on their responsibilities and duties.
Lead 2C: Yes. I don’t think that being the lead department precludes other departments from also exercising their powers or discharging their responsibilities. The concept of a lead department foresees, I think, as it simply says, that that department will lead the response and obviously help inform the response across government. Again, do you take any issue with the fact that that’s what the Department of Health’s role –
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t take any – I don’t take any challenge in regards to that, but what I’m – I’m trying to identify what I perceived as our role and remit as lead department and what our responsibilities were, from my understanding at that point.
Lead 2C: Okay.
Just again coming back to the question of whether or not there was any sort of formal designation or a formal decision that the Department of Health is the lead department, under the 2016 protocol, was there ever any such decision or discussion?
Mr Robin Swann: Not that I’m aware of, and again I think in regards to the identification of a lead department, that’s a requirement from the Executive Office as well, that they are to designate a lead department and that formal notification to me, a request to me, never was made.
Lead 2C: We’ll look at some of the underlying material that’s generated over time about this. Just again I’m just dealing with the chronology and what happened after the COBR meeting. The Inquiry has seen, and it’s been raised in, I think, the other modules under Module 2, the email that was sent from Professor Woolhouse to Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer. Is that an email that you’re familiar with?
Mr Robin Swann: It’s not one I’m familiar with, apart from Sir Michael’s evidence on –
Lead 2C: Okay. So that – Professor Woolhouse had emailed Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer in respect of the basic reproduction rate of Covid-19 as provided by WHO and the case fatality rate, and in his email he set out that if you put those numbers into an epidemiological model for Scotland, you would predict – and he set out predictions about what would happen and went on to say that the health system would become completely overwhelmed, and he said that these were the ballpark numbers based on an information from WHO and that it wasn’t a worst-case scenario. He went on to say that the worst-case scenario is considerably worse.
Were you aware from your Scottish counterparts that that ability to do that sort of modelling and forecast what might happen in Scotland was going on?
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t, my Lady, in regards to that specific calculation, and I think it wasn’t actually until later, I think probably mid-March, that those figures were actually put into a Northern Ireland population in regards to what it could actually mean.
Lead 2C: Again, we’re probably jumping ahead in time, because I’m going to come to the provision of those figures to the Executive Office in March, but can you explain why, in Northern Ireland, similar exercises weren’t going on, in so far as Scotland appears to have just been using the WHO central estimates and case fatality rate to generate these figures?
Mr Robin Swann: I’m not sure as to why, but I do know that – well, I know from watching the evidence on Friday, that that evidence had been shared with Sir Michael in regards to –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – case fatalities and that. There was never anything that – that black and white calculation, as to an exact figure, that was ever presented to me at that point in time.
Lead 2C: Well, I was going to just ask you that, whether or not you were being advised at this time that these were the sorts of figures being provided to Scotland and potentially informing the Scottish response to the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: I think in regards to – and again, looking back at presentations that were given, I think by Dr Chada in regards to expected percentage infection rates to mortality, you know, early February it was expected, if my memory serves me right, in Dr Chada’s presentations he was talking about – there was talking – I assume it came from World Health Organisation – of a 40% infection rate with a 1% mortality, which changed I think towards the start of March where we were actually looking towards an 80% infection rate and a 1% mortality.
So there was – I am aware of those changes in percentages in regards to infection rate, hospitalisation, but I’m not aware that anybody prior to March actually sat down and put that against as a calculation to the Northern Ireland population as to what that would actually mean, that I’m aware of.
Lead 2C: I mean, because we’ve obviously talked about the lack of modelling capability in Northern Ireland but it’s not clear that that would require any modelling necessarily rather than a calculation –
Mr Robin Swann: No, I don’t think that would require the modelling of any regards, but, as I say, and I need to be clear, not that was presented to me at that time in regards to that.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: So I am not saying that it hadn’t been done elsewhere or presented elsewhere within my department.
Lead 2C: I think, Mr Swann, what I’m just focusing on is the advice that was being provided to you and whether it was being conveyed to you at this stage, and I will take it incrementally, but whether or not at this stage at the end of January you were being advised as to the potential, for example, in the way that your Scottish counterpart may have been advised about the potential, as I say, for health services to be overrun or for the sorts of strain that the health services in Northern Ireland might be put under –
Mr Robin Swann: I think there was an understanding that no matter what level of infection or pressure that Covid was going to bring, my Lady, that our health service was already under pressure, so anything additional had the potential to look at the collapse of some of our services. So there was a realisation that even at the lower figures that had been presented that this was going to have a significant – and that’s why we instigated – sorry, as a department we instigated our emergency response plan pretty early on in regards to what we needed to be doing and standing up in regards to preparation for that, because we were aware that we had a particularly fragile health service.
Lead 2C: All right.
So would you say then from the end of January you were working on the basis that this was an eventuality, and again, that health services might be overrun, for example, that you were planning and working towards?
Mr Robin Swann: I would say not only that I was doing it but, you know – and the Inquiry will be aware that our health service silver command had already been stood up on 22 January, our emergency response plan. And gold, I think, then stood up about a week later in regards to that. So there was a level of preparation. And to stand up our gold command is a significant step to take, so there was a realisation across our service in regards to what was going to be necessary.
Lead 2C: Okay, I’m going to come back and ask you what was being done, but again, just focusing on this period of time, we’ve also seen an email, and I’m not going to bring it up because it wasn’t an email sent to you but, again, it’s just to ask about your general awareness at this point in time, that on 28 January the Chief Medical Officer for the United Kingdom, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, had sent an email to Downing Street effectively saying that there were two scenarios in play, one was that China would have a major outbreak but be able to control it, or the alternative was that the opposite, effectively, that China would have a major outbreak and not be able to control it. So a dichotomous situation.
Again, was that something that you were aware of at the end of January?
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t aware of the email that had been sent to Number 10, but I was aware that, I think, we were preparing for the second scenario and that’s why at the end of January we’d already instigated our – Health and Social Care had stepped up silver, we’d instigated our emergency response plan in regards to that, but also standing up gold. So I think we were preparing for that worst-case scenario that China wasn’t going to be able to contain it.
Lead 2C: So at that point, if there was that appreciation, were you being advised then as to the type of infrastructure that would be required in order to respond to that second scenario? So, for example, the sorts of surveillance that might be required in health services, what capacity for testing there was, what capacity for tracing there was?
Mr Robin Swann: Not to that level of detail at that point, but I was aware that there were – surge plans had been instigated. So, having stood up health gold, I’m now aware that Sir Michael, as chair of gold, had already instigated and started those conversations across Health and Social Care Board, Public Health Agency, BS – our business service organisations, to make sure that all those parts were aware of their responsibilities but also the challenges that some of them may face in certain areas.
Lead 2C: All right. I’m going to go to a bit of correspondence about the surge plans when we come to it chronologically.
Again, if that, if there had been that crystallisation, as it were, at the end of January, did you speak then to the First Minister and the deputy First Minister about that to make them aware that that was the position or the view that had been taken in the Department of Health, in other words that you clearly regarded the situation as very serious and were planning accordingly?
Mr Robin Swann: I reported to the Executive meetings as to the steps that we were taking in regards to health and where the – where Covid actually was in regards to case numbers across the UK as well, but that was also being reinforced, and, my belief, not just at my level, at a ministerial level, but also in regards to the engagement that my permanent secretary was having with permanent secretary groups in regards to the briefing of other departmental officials as well, across all departments.
Lead 2C: You’re referring to the meetings that Mr Pengelly would have with his counterparts –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: – I think on a weekly basis?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Okay. I’ll ask you, we’ve also seen some of those, and I’ll ask you about, perhaps, the message that was being conveyed at that time.
Just before we move on, then, you’ve obviously mentioned the silver response and the Inquiry knows that that involved the PHA, and I think the health boards as well; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Were you aware then that issues had been raised about the capability of the PHA to fulfil its statutory duties from 2017 onwards?
Mr Robin Swann: Not from 2017 onwards. I am aware, you know – and again, through correspondence that has been shared by the Inquiry with me last night – in regards to challenges of the PHA that were actually there in regards to where they seen. I think from the correspondence that I’ve seen that they were giving the reassurance again to Sir Michael, as chair of gold, as to what steps they were going to take to make sure that they were ready for what they were being required to do.
Lead 2C: Again, I’m just going to focus on what you knew at that time and the question was whether – and I think maybe the answer is no – you knew that there might be quite serious question marks over the PHA’s capabilities –
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t, at that particular point.
Lead 2C: All right.
So again, just taking this chronologically, you attended COBR, I think the next meeting was on 20 January, a relatively short time later.
And perhaps if we just go to the minutes of that, that’s at INQ000056226.
Again, just briefly at page 1, I think there’s now a much longer, a much greater body of ministers in attendance.
If we go, please, to page 3, I think we see that from Northern Ireland the Chief Medical Officer is there, and I think it’s right that Ms Rooney was also there.
If we could just look at paragraph 1, please.
So I think here it’s being conveyed that there was human-to-human transmission and that it was certainly in Germany. I think if we could just go down, please, to paragraph 3, so again I think the mention there of the sort of dichotomous eventualities; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Then, at paragraph 6, please, that government should prepare for the reasonable worst-case scenario, and that there should be a ministerial tabletop exercise in the following fortnight.
Again, we’ll come back and deal with that exercise, but again, were you clear – thank you, that can come down – or did you understand the message being conveyed by government at that time to be a reinforcement of that message that the situation was becoming ever more serious?
Mr Robin Swann: It was, in regards to, you know, you talk about the dichotomy there, and if you go back to that paragraph, you know, it says it will take weeks or months, prior to that.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: So there was that, I think it’s been described as that rising tide awareness of what was potentially going to happen.
Lead 2C: All right, but I think going back to my question whether or not you regarded that as a reinforcement of the message that this was becoming increasingly serious?
Mr Robin Swann: And it was, but it’s still going back to, as you presented, that dichotomy as to what the two scenarios were, that it would be contained in China or not contained in China and I think at that point there’s a realisation or an acceptance that it’s no longer going to be contained in China because the minutes already indicate that there was four cases in Germany.
Lead 2C: I think that after this meeting, and again we’ve seen internal email correspondence about this, that you asked if the First Minister and the deputy First Minister had been briefed, and just coming back to that, I don’t think we’ve seen any briefings to the ministers before then. Would that tend to suggest that you hadn’t spoken to the deputy First Minister and the First Minister about Covid by that stage?
Mr Robin Swann: No, I think, sorry, the date of that –
Lead 2C: That’s 29 January.
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I’d already – we’d already, I think, raised it at an Executive meeting, in regards to that, in general conversations, I think it would be part of a general conversation that I would have had, and they would have been aware of what other steps were being taken. I think my point in raising that was, are the FM and dFM being briefed –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – is the fact that are they receiving – it was more a question from my point of view, are they receiving the same information that I have because at that point I didn’t know of the structures of papers or the flow of papers that they were actually coming through the Executive Office.
Lead 2C: I think in fact the first meeting of the Executive Committee was on 2 February, so I don’t think there had been a meeting by that stage. But I suppose, just putting aside the question of briefing, in terms of the relationship that you had with the First Minister and the deputy First Minister, was it the sort of relationship where you would go and informally speak to them about things like this, or was there a greater formality to communications with them and your relationship with them?
Mr Robin Swann: At that point in time there would have been a greater formality, because again, you know, it’s 29 January, we were only re-established as an Executive a few weeks prior to that, so there wasn’t the interaction that we later developed, and again that’s why I was able to say, my Lady, that I thought I had good support from the First and deputy First Minister, because we had that, I believed, that relationship where there was an open exchange of views and conversations.
Lead 2C: All right.
So again just coming back then to the chronology and why at that particular time you thought that they should be or were asking had they been briefed, again can we take it that that’s because of the increasing understanding that this would require for a significant scale of response from government in Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: Very much so, but also, I suppose, the question I was asking at that point is to make sure that I was satisfied myself that they were receiving the same information coming out of those COBR meetings.
Ms Dobbin: All. Right. We’ll go back to that.
My Lady, I think it’s time for a break.
Lady Hallett: Certainly. We shall break until 11.30.
I hope you were warned, Mr Swann, about breaks, I’m afraid it’s a long day for you but we will complete you today, I promise.
The Witness: Thank you.
(11.14 am)
(A short break)
(11.30 am)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.
So, Mr Swann, I think before that short adjournment we had just gotten to about the end of January 2020, and we’ve gone through what your state of understanding was by that point and I think we’re probably agreed, or at least it appears on the face of the documents, first of all that there hadn’t been any meeting of ministers in Northern Ireland at that stage. I think you’re nodding, is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: It doesn’t appear that there had been any sort of formal or minuted meeting between you and the First Minister and the deputy First Minister to discuss Covid-19 either, is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: (Witness nods)
Lead 2C: Putting that to one side and putting formality to one side, do you recollect having any discussions with them at this stage about Covid-19, or maybe even any discussions with them at all, or would you have been doing quite separate things?
Mr Robin Swann: No, no, there will have been discussions, as I said, at that point in time the main thrust was actually bringing our health service workers out of industrial action, so there was, you know, there was joint press conferences in regards to doing that. So I can’t honestly recall if Covid was discussed as a – at those points as well, but if you’re pointing, there is no formal record of a formal meeting had at that point in time towards the end of January, there’s not that I am aware of.
Lead 2C: Just, again, in terms of just understanding how you were being advised about the pandemic, obviously as time moved on there was a much greater proliferation of papers and advice; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: SAGE advice, SPI-M papers, all of that. Were you reading those yourself or were those papers being synthesised for you or were you receiving oral briefings? How was that information being conveyed?
Mr Robin Swann: When it comes to those SAGE or SPI-M that you’re talking – those were being synthesised through Chief Medical Officer’s office in regards to his support staff and were – you know, the briefing notes that I would have had pre-COBR or even pre-Executive meetings were that document that I was working from. And as you already indicated, that request that I had made, you know, “Can’t I have a briefing?”, Chief Medical Officer indicated there was already one on its way to me at that point.
Lead 2C: Again, sorry, I’m just trying to understand, because we’ve seen some of the written briefings, whether or not the information was principally conveyed in writing to you or whether or not you would have received oral briefings or was it a combination?
Mr Robin Swann: It would have been a combination of both based on, based on those papers as well as regards to, you know, if a paper came in it would have been backed up with engagement with the Chief Medical Officer before attending especially the COBR meetings because the two of us were joining those together.
Lead 2C: Again, I’m going just to take it chronologically. As far as the Inquiry can see, the first time that the Executive Committee met since power-sharing resumed was on 3 February, I may have said 2 February earlier but it was 3 February and we know that Covid-19 was listed under “Any other business” rather than constituting a subject of its own at that stage.
Does that reflect that it wasn’t regarded as a principal issue at that time or why would it have only come under “Any other business”?
Mr Robin Swann: That would be for – again, that would be for the secretariat of the Executive but I don’t think we should read too much into the fact that there was – where it sat on the agenda, it was the fact that it was on the agenda and was being talked about and we were able to raise it and have those conversations in regards to that.
Lead 2C: All right.
I’m just going to look, if I may, with you at a briefing for that meeting that you were provided with, and this is INQ000425586, please.
The Inquiry has seen this, Mr Swann, but we can see it’s addressed to you and the CMO. We can see, can’t we, that it’s a briefing for the Executive Committee meeting? If we go over the page, please, it would appear that you were being provided, as it were, with an update, for example, as to the number of infections across the world and the number of deaths as well; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: We see there a reference to the fact that – of the announcement that had been made on 30 January; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: It was a public health emergency of international concern. Thank you.
At 4, reference also to the fact that cases were now being seen in England as well. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes. Sorry.
Lead 2C: No, don’t worry.
I think we can see as well – we don’t need to go to this – but reference to there having been two tests in Northern Ireland.
If we could go to page 7, please, these were your lines to take, and we can see at 2:
“I want to reassure colleagues that while the risk has been raised from low to moderate …”
And we saw reference to that, didn’t we, at paragraph 3?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: That it was “no cause for alarm”.
Didn’t mean that risk to individuals had changed, but “we should plan for all eventualities”.
In terms of the significance that you attached to the raising of the risk from low to moderate, does that paper reflect what you understood?
Mr Robin Swann: It does, but – and again, my Lady, probably with the benefit of hindsight – where I understood the raising of risk from low to moderate was the fact that we’d already instigated our silver command and were starting to go through our structures, I think maybe a weakness was that there wasn’t an explanation or an understanding what actually moving to moderate means in regards to possibly the strength of what – maybe in my feeling and what I was explaining that to my Executive colleagues and actually what it mean – meant, that we should plan for all eventualities.
But in regards to that, there was also those – you know, the further briefings that the permanent secretaries were having, the Chief Medical Officer or the Deputy Chief Medical Officer was providing as well.
So if there’s a feeling at that point in regards to how strong a position I was positioning, my Lady, I think it’s that understanding for others as to what it actually meant by moving from low to moderate, because that is quite a significant step and the crux of it being that we should plan for all eventualities, I actually think is the key line in that.
Lead 2C: Again, if I may just unpick this. First of all, Mr Swann, this was advice that was being provided to you, wasn’t it –
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: – rather – you have said “Maybe it’s my fault”, but this was what you were being told you should convey to colleagues, correct, by your expert advisers?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, but – and I’m sorry, and I think what I mean in that, my Lady, is maybe that, you know, I didn’t, or the understanding of what “moderate” meant maybe wasn’t strongly enough conveyed to Executive colleagues. It may have been disseminated through their permanent secretaries in other standings as to actually what that meant, but round the Executive table – and I think it was our first Executive meeting since –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – since restoration, so I’m sure ministers’ heads were in other places as well, having just picked up their own portfolios.
Lead 2C: But of course – but, again, and I’m not – I’m – this is being approached on the basis this was advice to you as to what you should convey.
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: I suppose, first of all, whether or not how this is put is also how you understood it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: In other words, that raising it to moderate didn’t necessarily change the dial very much?
Mr Robin Swann: But this should have meant, sorry, and again it’s looking at that point in time with what I know now .
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: It should have been not changing the dial but it should have been actually telling people to be prepared to turn the dial up in regards to: we’ve moved from low to moderate, get ready for the next step, I think was what that, what should have been portrayed at that point.
Lead 2C: It’s really – it’s useful to have reflections on how things were, you know, looking at it now and perhaps seeing this could have been sounding alarm bells to a much greater degree, and it’s helpful that you’re doing that, but again I just want to focus, and I don’t want to inhibit you from doing that, but I just want to focus for a moment on what this might have conveyed, first of all, to you, Mr Swann, and then of course to your colleagues.
I mean, do you accept that framing it in this way wasn’t sufficient and didn’t make it clear enough why changing to moderate was significant?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, and I think that, and sorry, apologies, my Lady, if I’m not portraying it – I think that’s where that step-up, where it is significant, in retrospect, about whether it was being conveyed at that point in time, but I think it is important just to stress again that last part of that bullet point that we should start to plan for all eventualities, I think that’s the point that I suppose should have been reinforced and really driven home.
Lead 2C: I wonder as well, Mr Swann, telling people to plan for all eventualities and particularly ministers who may not, you know, most of whom – I know that it’s not correct of the deputy First Minister but who may have no background in the Department of Health or understanding how a response to a pandemic works, that might not necessarily mean a great deal, to tell them to plan for all eventualities. That’s quite different from saying “We’re facing a very significant risk and here are the things we really need to be thinking about now”. Do you accept that?
Mr Robin Swann: I do, but I also think it reflects back to that exchange at the Executive Office – maybe you’ll come on to that – in regards to where it was said that Northern Ireland was 18 months behind in preparing for those civil contingencies –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – and aspects outside health. So in regards to the preparing for all eventualities, it’s where that gap had maybe been established that there could have been an alarm bell ringing at this stage, go back to your departments and make sure –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – that that gap is closed or at least been tried to be closed.
Lead 2C: I think we’ll come, I don’t want to shut you out from making that point, but I think again as we go on and consider how the picture developed I think that we will be able to come back to that question of whether or not there was sufficient understanding on the part of other departments.
Again just trying to understand, we’re now at the start of February, what was being done in Northern Ireland at this point, either to prevent, for example, transmission into Northern Ireland or transmission amongst the public in Northern Ireland. Were there any steps that were being taken to address that, rather than, for example, surge planning in the event that it happened?
Mr Robin Swann: Not in regards that were Northern Ireland-specific in regards to prevention of, you know, I suppose people coming to our shores, in regards to that, because of it being a non-devolved issue in regards to international travel. So in regards it was big preparation, it was a big discussion, it was a bigger surge plans and making sure that we were getting ready for what potentially may come.
Lead 2C: So that’s obviously addressing what may come, but does that mean that there was – again, just in terms of what you knew, what might be being done to stop it coming in the first place to Northern Ireland or to try and inhibit transmission when it arrived?
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t think there was any preparation been done across these islands, my Lady, in regards to the ability to stop it coming here and, again, there was the two scenarios that were painted earlier on in regards to China would contain it or it would become worldwide, so I think in that recognition we were moving towards the second part as well. But in regards to, you know, preparing, I suppose, Northern Ireland for the prevention of what could actually happen, I think our focus was mainly on preparing health service for it, rather than actually wider preparation for what became, you know, our non-pharmaceutical interventions and NPIs as they spoke about.
Lead 2C: So obviously the Inquiry understands that Northern Ireland had no power to unilaterally shut its border or anything like that but does that mean that you were proceeding on the basis that it was just inevitable that it was going to arrive on Northern Ireland’s shores in due course?
Mr Robin Swann: I think there was an acceptance that it was going to be when not if in regards to that.
Lead 2C: All right.
Now just trying to focus then on what actually was being done, you’ve referred, I think, to the fact that surge planning was going on. And I think that we see – and perhaps if I can take you to this, INQ000137326.
The Inquiry has seen this already, Mr Swann, and I think it has been provided to you as well. It’s a letter from the Chief Medical Officer. I think we understand that Ms Watts was from one of the health boards; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: Ms Watts was actually chief executive of Health and Social Care Board and PHA at that time.
Lead 2C: Right. So, in other words, I think the person who would then be operationally responsible for your silver arrangements?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s right, yeah.
Lead 2C: I think, I won’t read out all of this, Mr Swann, but I think we can see that the CMO wanted to know about what the arrangements would be for the command and control arrangements at silver level; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Sorry, I should have said before I went any further, this is 17 February, isn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Thank you.
If we just scroll down a bit, we can see that he was raising capacity within the PHA, and if we could scroll down, please, we can see, and just moving on, having raised the question of PHA capability, he refers there to surge planning and the fact that robust modelling would take some time.
Do you see that, Mr Swann?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Then I think the third paragraph, that he was seeking details of surge planning to be provided by 13 March; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: I think it’s right, isn’t it, that when those surge plans initially were provided to the Department of Health, they were deficient and had to be – I think had to be the subject of or sent for much more or much greater detailed consideration; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: So, again, I’m just –
Mr Robin Swann: I’m not sure – I know it says by 13 March at latest. I’m not sure if they were presented actually earlier than that.
Lead 2C: I’m sure we can find the date for you, but again, I think the issue may be that when they were provided it would appear that PHA and the health boards had not, were not capable of providing the sort of surge planning that the Department of Health expected; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That would be correct, from conversations with the Chief Medical Officer, he challenged those again.
Lead 2C: Again, just trying to understand where this fits in, in terms of the planning, this is being sought on 17 February, so that’s obviously a number of weeks down the line. Is this, as you understand it, the first substantive step that was taken towards surge planning in Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, in regards to that the formal request coming from Chief Medical Officer as chair of gold, yes, that’s, you know, the first documented request of those specifics that I have seen, but we’d already stepped up silver and instigated our emergency response plan which asks for those surge plans to develop, so as the chronological order of that.
Lead 2C: So why would that have required the CMO to ask for plans?
Mr Robin Swann: Because he is chair of gold.
Lead 2C: Yes, sorry, I’m probably misunderstanding. Do you mean that there had been an initial request for plans?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s what I’m saying, I don’t know if there had been a request, but I think this is him interacting – if we go back to the start of that document again, I only received it this morning in regards to that, and there’s a follow-up from a meeting actually on 11 February from what I – I received from that, so that seems to be the initial engagement that he had at that point.
Lead 2C: All right. Yes, I think we can see that, can’t we, that there had been that initial meeting?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: And I think in fact the Inquiry has seen reference to that already, that it was a follow-up from that on 11 February and this was the request.
Again, the fact that he was seeking plans and asking for them to be provided by 13 March at the latest might suggest that, I mean, that doesn’t speak to urgency about the need to have these surge plans in place?
Mr Robin Swann: But I think it possibly speaks to the detail that was required, the fact that he asked for them to go back again, again from my understanding, and what you’ve said here as well, so when they did come in at that point that he challenged them to go back again to make sure they were fit for purpose at that point in time.
Lead 2C: All right.
So other than this, what’s set out in this letter, what were the other aspects of the response in Northern Ireland at this point, say, in mid-February?
Mr Robin Swann: Around February, in regards to, I suppose, the interactions from my own department, I do know my permanent secretary, as I said earlier, had alerted the permanent secretary stakeholder group in regards to making sure they were to get ready as well. I’d made an urgent written statement, I think as you referred to earlier on as well, to the Assembly to make sure there was a public awareness of what was being done and what was expected as well. So in regards to that as well. I’m also aware from, and I suppose from Executive papers, maybe a jumping a bit further into February, was that paper to the TEO Executive board in regards to their concerns about the Executive in Northern Ireland not being prepared.
Lead 2C: All right. I’m going to come back and just try and deal chronologically with things, then, because I think that – and again, I’m going back in time a bit, we’ve jumped ahead to 17 February, but you went to a COBR meeting on 5 February.
And again I just wanted to bring that up, please. That’s INQ000056215.
Again, I think we can see a host of ministers present, Mr Swann, and if we could just go over the page, please, we can see that again you’ve dialled in with your counterparts. If we could just check again.
If we could scroll down, please.
Yes, so I think at this meeting there wasn’t anyone from the TEO, I hope you’ll take that from me.
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: I’ve checked, I can’t see that there was. But the Chief Medical Officer did attend.
I think if we could just look, please, at page 5 and paragraph 2, I think, Mr Swann, this is a reflection of the growing information that was now available, and we can see, for example, that the two most high risk groups appear to be the elderly and those with pre-existing illnesses, and that the fatality rate remained at 2 to 3%; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Sorry, if we could just please go to page 8, I think it’s the final bullet on page 8. Yes. So again – I just want to pick this up – again, reference there to the invitation to the upcoming ministerial exercise. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Now, the Inquiry has already heard from senior officials in Northern Ireland that they did understand through information that was coming from UK central government that China had in fact lost control of the virus at that stage. Was that also your understanding?
Mr Robin Swann: Not clearly at that point in time, in regards to any briefing that I received in regards to what we were all seeing what was happening, you know, on TVs and across the world, but there was no, I don’t think there was any direct paper or alert to say “China’s lost control in regards to where it is”.
Lead 2C: All right.
So whatever understanding or information they had, that wasn’t shared or provided?
Mr Robin Swann: Not that I can recall.
Lead 2C: All right.
If we, sorry, could just stay on this document, please, and go back to page 6 as well, we can see, Mr Swann, the planning for a reasonable worst-case scenario. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Again, I’m not going to read out all of it, but we can see that you must have been provided with slides about planning work that was going on around that; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Then I just wanted to pick up at paragraph 11, that the chair said it was appropriate for all departments to privately engage with trusted partners on the reasonable worst-case scenario planning assumptions; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Again, reference to the ministerial tabletop exercise, which again we’ll come back to.
Again, just to finish this off, at page 8, please, and paragraph 7, sorry, it’s page 7, we can see that paragraph 7 said:
“ALL DEPARTMENTS to rapidly advance planning for the reasonable worst case scenario, centrally co-ordinated by the Civil Contingencies Secretariat.”
Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Mr Swann – thank you, that can come down – did you understand in terms of the planning that was going on at central government level, and that instruction that all departments should start to prepare their planning, that that was something that equally should be being done in Northern Ireland as well?
Mr Robin Swann: My assumption would have been that there was cross-communication as well, rather than just what was being conveyed at COBR, that when it comes to civil contingencies and their request for that to happen, there would have been read-across into the Executive Office as well rather than just a simple reliance on that set of minutes and the request coming from it.
Lead 2C: Just to be clear about that, you would have taken it as read it didn’t require COBR to say that, it should have been happening in Northern Ireland in any event?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, in regards to if that was what was happening in the discussions at COBR, there should have been a read-across –
Lead 2C: I misunderstood then. So you would – so even though it appears that no one from Northern Ireland other than you and the CMO was at that meeting, that nonetheless there should have been an awareness in Northern Ireland that that was the position?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, because, my understanding, those papers again were still being shared through the CCPB(NI) so they were picking up in regards to the civil contingencies response.
Lead 2C: Again, to my second point whether or not that should have been taken as a given in Northern Ireland by this stage anyway that that sort of departmental planning should be going on, is that also your position?
Mr Robin Swann: That would have been my assumption and my understanding. But in hindsight, my Lady, maybe it was an assumption too far in regards to some points –
Lead 2C: All right.
Mr Robin Swann: – in regards to that.
Lead 2C: We know, and it’s a letter that the Inquiry has seen many times, that on 6 February an official from the Department of Health advised officials in the TEO that it wasn’t necessary to activate the NICCMA arrangements unless and until the infection appears in Northern Ireland, and its impacts were experienced in Northern Ireland.
So I suppose the first question is whether or not you were aware that officials from your department were providing that advice to TEO?
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t at that point.
Lead 2C: Is that advice that you would have agreed with or thought that your department ought to be giving to TEO?
Mr Robin Swann: At that point in time – again, my Lady, from the understanding of the briefings that I have received in regards to what we’ve – the department thought was necessary – no, it wasn’t necessary to stand up NICCMA at that point. And you have heard from Richard Pengelly in regards to the permanent secretaries’ point of view but also from the Chief Medical Officer’s point of view.
I do go on, my Lady, and actually say in my own statement that there was a potential gain we could have had if we’d have stood up NICCMA. I think I would reflect more what David Sterling actually said: you know, if we’d have stood up NICCMA slightly earlier, it may have raised the red flag to those other departments that, as of that point, actually hadn’t – hadn’t taken up the – taken up the baton at that point in time.
And apologies if I’ve jumped forward again on you.
Lead 2C: You have jumped forward a little bit.
But again, I suppose that the real issue here, Mr Swann, is the fact that the Department of Health was actually giving that information – or, sorry, giving that advice. So rather than, as it were, raising the red flag and saying, “You really need to be clear, the position that has been reached”, we have the Department of Health saying, or advising, “We don’t think that the protocol needs to be stood up”.
Mr Robin Swann: And I think in that regards, from – from my analysis and from my point of view, it was advice. It’s not to be taken by NICCMA or CCPB(NI) as a direct instruction not to stand it up, it still falls within the remit of – and I think the Inquiry has heard, my Lady, that it’s – there’s a number of options as to who can actually instigate NICCMA or when it should be stood up or under what conditions it’s stood up.
So rather than, I think, CCPB(NI) or TEO officials taking that as a direct instruction not to, I think there’s an opportunity where they could possibly have used their own initiatives in regards to when NICCMA could be – NICCMA was stood up I think prior to that, in 2017, for Storm Ophelia, my Lady –
Lady Hallett: They’re not likely – forgive me for interrupting, but they’re not likely to go against the advice of the Department of Health in a health emergency, are they, Mr Swann, to be fair?
Mr Robin Swann: To be fair, my Lady, probably not, but there is an opportunity, I think, where they could have, if they were getting other indications from other departments that there was a possibility that NICCMA should be or could be stood up in regards to pressures coming from other areas. And again, it’s only through engaging with the papers that I think there was a request or at least an indication that came from the permanent secretary of education in regards to that. So I think from a Department of Health point of view, it was more in regards to timing in regards to when it would be most appropriate to be stood up, as I –
Lady Hallett: – have consulted you about that?
Mr Robin Swann: Potentially, my Lady, yes, in regards to that. And again in regards to the advice and guidance that I’ve – and, my Lady, if the advice and guidance coming from my permanent secretary and the Chief Medical Officer was that it was premature to stood it up, after challenging them and interrogating and asking them, I may in all likelihood have probably agreed with the both of them.
Lady Hallett: But at least you’d had a chance to challenge and test.
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lady Hallett: So they should have asked – so it’s not just potentially, they should have asked you?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to – and again, I’m at the level of that correspondence at that point of time, I don’t know if it was being – it wasn’t being brought to my attention.
Ms Dobbin: I think this comes back to a point I asked you at the start, Mr Swann, about your understanding of civil contingencies arrangements in that 2016 protocol, and whether or not you would have understood by this stage what those arrangements were and what potentially the role of the Department of Health was in them.
Mr Robin Swann: And I think it goes back to that early point in regards to from the first-day brief in regards to the role in civil contingencies, you know, and I think that has been provided to the Inquiry as well, which actually says about the Department of Health being the lead for health-related issues.
Lead 2C: But I suppose, sorry, forgive me, I just mean –
Mr Robin Swann: The – no, it doesn’t go into the detail of activation of NICCMA or CCPB(NI) in their role and responsibility or actually who can instigate NICCMA as well. I’m not even sure if that was contained in other first day briefs either.
Lead 2C: Do you think at this stage there was actually a lack of clarity as to who was responsible for what in government in Northern Ireland in response to this unfolding –
Mr Robin Swann: I do. And I think the more that I’ve read into this and the more I have listened over the past few days in regards to that as well, I think there is a misunderstanding as to who can take that co-ordination control, that overarching, that – you know, that umbrella, almost, view of what’s being done across all departments.
I think it is clear – I think it is delineated in NICCMA in regards to who can take the responsibilities. Whether they were taken by the appropriate people – and I think TEO and the Executive Office, where CCPB(NI) actually sits, I’m not sure were actually stepping forward to assume their command and control – or, sorry, their oversight control even – in regards to what needed to be done on a Northern Ireland-wide basis, rather than solely seeing the Covid pandemic through the prism of it being a health issue.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: It was going to be solely maintained within health, but, as we now know, it expanded into every aspect of government in Northern Ireland and every aspect of human life.
Lead 2C: Again, I’m just focusing for the moment on the message perhaps that officials in your department were giving at that time.
And I wonder if we could go to INQ000254430.
Again, the Inquiry has seen this, Mr Swann., it’s not a letter from you, it’s a letter from the Chief Medical Officer, and I think that this relates back to the COBR meeting and the idea that trusted partners should be told about getting planning assumptions in place for the reasonable worst-case scenario.
Is that what you think about this letter, that that’s what it relates to?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s my understanding. And if I’m correct again from what I’ve read, my Lady, it was at the request of CCPB(NI) that the Chief Medical Officer actually drafted that letter for circulation, using his knowledge and experience as to what was required coming out of that COBR meeting.
Lead 2C: I think we see here in terms of who it’s addressed to – and again, sorry, just focusing on the date, again, it’s 6 February 2020 – it’s to all Northern Ireland departments for onward distribution to all public authorities.
So, first of all, it doesn’t appear to be restricted to trusted partners, so to speak – I’m not sure what “trusted partners” means; I don’t know if you do?
Mr Robin Swann: I’m not aware of the phrase having any standing in Northern Ireland, my Lady.
Lead 2C: But do you agree this letter was – I mean, it’s unequivocal, isn’t it, it is to all public authorities?
And I think that we’ve seen – again, I won’t go through this whole letter with you, Mr Swann, but if we go to paragraph 20.
So the advice being given to all public authorities in Northern Ireland that:
“… those … that already have contingency plans for … infectious diseases, such as pandemic influenza, should ensure that all relevant staff are acquainted with [them].”
Then at 21 – thank you:
“No other action is recommended at this time to public authorities in general.”
I mean, Mr Swann, just looking at that, obviously it doesn’t begin to deal with reasonable worst-case scenarios or planning assumptions, does it?
Mr Robin Swann: No, but again, it is the start of February in regards to the timeline of that. And I suppose it’s based on the understanding of where Covid may actually be at that point in time in regards to the – the seriousness in regards to that, in regards to the infection and also the effects of it, in regards to when it actually arrives in Northern Ireland. But I think it’s clear there in regards to that. And, as you say, it’s not a letter that I sent out, but it clearly says it shouldn’t – all public authorities should ensure that all relevant staff are acquainted with the plans, and those are the plans for infectious diseases and pandemic influenza, because at that stage I think – and whether – and probably incorrectly, we were still working on the basis that pandemic flu preparedness plans were going to be the key building block of our response.
Lead 2C: I mean, what about the public authorities that didn’t have any such plans? I mean, there’s nothing to tell them that maybe they should think about getting them. I mean, it’s premised on getting organisations with plans to get their staff to have a look at them.
Mr Robin Swann: I can’t comment on, in regards to what was included in this letter, but I suppose again it depends on the circulation list as to who it was going to in regards to was there an expectation that they would have those plans in place. I can’t comment to that on this –
Lead 2C: I think it’s going to all public authorities and I think given the way this is written, those public authorities that already have the plans would suggest that it was understood that they might not all have plans.
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: In terms of paragraph 21, “No other action is recommended at this time”, again, this was going to all public authorities in Northern Ireland; do you have concerns about that?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to, I suppose, at that point in time, in early February, it wouldn’t have been a concern at that time, and again it’s putting things into perspective, my Lady, in regards to time of when the letter was actually written and circulated, in regards to what other actions public authorities may have been able to take in regards to being prepared for a pandemic at that point.
Lead 2C: I mean, again do you agree that in terms of highlighting to public authorities that there’s this building picture of concern and a need to really make sure that they are planning for this possible eventuality, that this isn’t really, again, raising any kind of flag to them?
Mr Robin Swann: It wouldn’t be raising a flag but again taking – and again it’s not a letter I –
Lead 2C: No, of course.
Mr Robin Swann: – I drafted, I circulated, I had sight of prior to the Inquiry, so the point in time, point of inflection, the – or the general context as to where we are, whether the paragraph is even needed at that point in time may be a reflection in regards to it that the author may make at this point, my Lady.
Lead 2C: Well, all right, we’ll carry on, if we may, just looking at how this developed.
Just going back for a second to the COBR meeting, obviously it was flagging up, wasn’t it, as well, the concern that elderly people and those with existing illnesses might be or certainly appeared to be more vulnerable to Covid-19 as well, and do you recollect whether or not that understanding was informing what the Department of Health was doing at that time, and if so what it was?
Mr Robin Swann: I do know in regards to that specific issue there was general, I suppose, guidance, high-level guidance, sent out to care homes towards the end of February in regards to that from Chief Social Worker and Chief Nurse, if I’m correct, but I can check on that, in regards to, you know – and again, it goes back to that point of preparing your plans for flu, influenza, you know, those pandemic preparedness that a lot of care homes and care home providers would already have had in place, not at a high level but again for influenza outbreaks and other outbreaks as well.
Lead 2C: Okay. As I say, we will look, have a look at care homes maybe in a little bit more detail and as a specific topic, but just following on, so we’ve seen the COBR meeting and the exhortation, perhaps, that all departments should start planning on their reasonable worst-case scenario basis. I think it’s right, then, that after that a few days later there was an Executive meeting.
Perhaps if we could just have a look at the handwritten note, that’s INQ000065706.
I think we can see this is 10 February. And I should say, Mr Swann, we don’t have the handwritten notes from 2 February, so this is the first point at which we can, as it were, pick up what was being conveyed to ministers.
I think if we could go to page 5, please.
So I think this was the information that was given to ministers via you, and I think if we could please just scroll down a little.
Then we see there, I’m just looking at the final couple of lines, Mr Swann:
“Risk level moderate, but not complacent.
“Working hard in [the] background.”
Accepting, of course, that this handwritten note may not set out everything that you say, it nonetheless looks like a fairly short update and certainly perhaps a fairly generalised one at that point?
Mr Robin Swann: I think, my Lady, as I said earlier, it was only through the Inquiry that I became aware that these notes were actually being taken and retained, so I can’t speak to whether that was a reflection as to what was actually said, the duration, whether it’s the highlights of what was actually said rather than actually a verbatim minute of what was said, so whether it’s all that I presented at that time, I can’t recall, but I’m –
Lead 2C: No.
Mr Robin Swann: – if that’s the note that has been taken, as the highlights that are there …
But I also think this goes back to the first point where it actually indicates in the first page that I may be leaving the Executive meeting to attend a Covid briefing –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – I think should also indicate to those who were in attendance at that meeting that it was a serious enough issue that I was leaving the Executive meeting to go and receive Covid briefings.
Lead 2C: But again, just coming back to the point that we discussed or that you stated a little while ago about perhaps not – that it wasn’t being conveyed to your colleagues about how significant a development it was, that the risk had gone up to moderate, we can see that it is mentioned here but, and I think these were the words that I wanted to ask you about “working hard in the background”, which must be obviously a reference to what the Department of Health was doing, but just the idea that it’s working in the background, that would suggest that again this isn’t a prominent issue, Covid-19 isn’t in the foreground of what the Executive Committee is –
Mr Robin Swann: But I think that that’s an update as to what – sorry, and again, it’s taking that, I suppose, one sentence of a handwritten note and putting it into context, “working hard in the background”. And, again, in regards to the preparation for the Coronavirus Act, there was a lot of work being done in the background between departments to make sure that they were actually prepared for the powers that would be required or the actions that would be required in – and in general in regards to that there would be cross-departmental work. So I can’t unfortunately put that into context.
Lead 2C: Of course, and I don’t want to pick over tiny, you know, words and isolated words, but I think that this is something that you say in your statement, and it’s obviously a very important point, and we will come back to it once we have moved on in the chronology a bit, but this idea that the response at this time was very much seen as being a matter for the Department of Health, as opposed to other departments, do we see here the sort of nutshell of that or an early indication of that?
Mr Robin Swann: I’m not sure, I’m not sure that does at that point in time, because, as I say, my Lady, in regards to the development of the Coronavirus Act, it was very much about working across departments to see what they needed put into it to make sure they were happy with it, and again that was taken under, you know, the urgent procedure through the Executive.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: So Executive colleagues were aware of it. And again that may be, and I don’t recall this handwritten transcript but, you know, that may be an opening statement and then the way these meetings usually worked, my Lady, I remember the First Minister Arlene Foster referring to them at one point as “Now we will move into the ‘Ask Robin’ section”, because it did move actually out into a quite engaging conversation in regards to what was happening in regards to what we were doing and what other departments were doing.
Lead 2C: I think, I mean, we can scroll down and see what the discussion was, and if – so, I mean, there doesn’t seem to have been much from the First Minister.
“[Deputy First Minister]: Keep us up to date?
“DOH: Yes.”
We move on to different topics.
So, I mean, it does seem to have been – I mean, certainly you may have briefed them, but any discussion thereafter, going by the notes, would appear to have been quite limited?
Mr Robin Swann: But – and again – and I wasn’t aware of those notes or how much of a verbatim record they actually are.
Lead 2C: So I think in time then you attended the exercise that we’ve seen reference to on a couple of occasions, the Operation Nimbus exercise, and from your statement you said that you haven’t – you have no real memory of that exercise at all. Is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That is correct, my Lady, when I was drafting my statement it wasn’t something that was actually in any recollection that I had. And when I looked back as to the actions that were taken out of it, I think it was at such a level that I didn’t – that’s possibly why I didn’t actually remember – at that point I actually hadn’t been added.
Lead 2C: Can we assume from that that you obtained no benefit or particular insight from it?
Mr Robin Swann: I honestly, and this may sound blunt, but I found no benefit, no beneficial takeaway from it that actually – that actually made it stick out in my memory as having an impact or an effect or any benefit to the things that was happening in Northern Ireland.
Lead 2C: Did it generate any papers within your department or any learning points or –
Mr Robin Swann: I think there was notes that flowed from it but there was no actual takeaway learning points that actually came out of it in regards to it.
Lead 2C: All right. So just coming back then to the legislation, and the paper that you provided in respect of that, I think we have that at INQ000390947.
So I think, again, this is what you’re referring to, I think, Mr Swann, in terms of this, the introduction of this Bill, as it were, helping to inform your ministerial colleagues about the position –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: – that was presenting itself.
Is it your evidence that this is – that this ought to have been a moment perhaps when the penny dropped for other ministers as to the gravity of the situation?
Mr Robin Swann: I think that would be a very – I think it would be a very accurate description as to where I saw the import, the importance actually of this Bill.
This was UK-wide draft legislation that I was asking other ministers – even just at paragraph 2:
“… Minister for Education … Finance … Justice have confirmed to me that they are content with the clauses as drafted …”
So, to me, it was already saying – well, it was saying to me: there’s a major piece of legislation that has been brought forward as to how the UK will actually respond to the coronavirus, and I’ve already had input from those other ministers.
For those other ministers to say they’re content with the clauses would – you know, to me, I know, within the Department of Health, my Lady, I wouldn’t be saying I’m happy with those clauses for emergency legislation without having had an understanding as to what they were going to mean to my department and also the responsibilities that they were going to bring at a legislative point of view.
I would also say, you know, this is still early February, so the Executive is still weeks old at this point, when I’m asking not just the First and the deputy First Minister to proceed with this through urgent procedure but also other ministers for a very quick and rapid input into it.
Lead 2C: So I think we can see here reference to you taking the lead because it’s a cross-cutting issue, I think that’s specific to this piece of legislation, isn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: So you’re effectively sponsoring –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: – the legislation. I think it’s correct that what you were inviting them to do was effectively to – and forgive me if I’m not accurate about this – but you were effectively saying that the regulations that would apply in Northern Ireland would be those that were applied – that were going to be applied in England but amended where they needed to be Northern Ireland specific; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, it was a UK-wide piece of legislation and that certain clauses within that Bill would have specific responsibility to education, finance, justice, and from recollection and from reading this that we’d actually written to them with the paragraphs or clauses that we felt were relevant to their role and their remits and their responsibilities to ask them to make sure that they were content with the inclusion of those, not just those clauses within the Bill but also the effect that they would have in Northern Ireland.
Lead 2C: All right, and if we can just go to paragraphs 3, 4 and 5, please.
So again, reference to you as the “Lead Government Department”. I think, again, that’s a reference to you being –
Mr Robin Swann: (inaudible).
Lead 2C: Well, I was going to say I thought that that was a reference in fact to the response to Covid-19. I mean, that’s what the sentence says. Correct?
Mr Robin Swann: I think “collaboration with other Executive Departments”, yeah.
Lead 2C: I don’t want to quibble.
Mr Robin Swann: Okay.
Lead 2C: But it does say:
“The Department of Health, as Lead Government Department, in collaboration …”
I’m not suggesting for a moment, Mr Swann, that this was entirely on your shoulders, I think it’s just important that there’s clarity –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: – that the Department of Health was the lead government department.
Mr Robin Swann: Okay.
Lead 2C: Correct?
We can – you’ve set out that your department continued to work closely with relevant authorities, and again reference to the fact that there had been that declaration on 30 January, as we’ve already seen, appropriate to a plan for a reasonable worst-case scenario. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Then, again, I think at 5, updating your ministerial colleagues about the number of cases; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And that there had been spread into the United Kingdom as well; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Correct, yeah.
Lead 2C: I think that’s – yes, that’s fine, thank you very much.
Can I just, Mr Swann – at this point in time, it doesn’t appear that the Executive Office had any other form of advice on the clinical or the medical or the health aspects of the pandemic other than that which you were providing to them, and I think you were also conveying obviously the advice that you were receiving from officials in the Department of Health. Is that your understanding as well?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, in regards to, I’m aware, there was correspondence, again we’ve mentioned it, between my permanent secretary and other permanent secretaries in regards to what they needed to be doing as well.
There was also – and sorry, again, I’ve jumped on, was that letter from the TEO board in regards to the Executive in Northern Ireland being prepared as well.
Lead 2C: Yes. Sorry, forgive me if I’m not being clear enough. The question was whether or not you accept that your department was the primary provider of information and advice to the TEO and indeed to other departments about, first of all, the response to the pandemic and the clinical picture –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: – about the pandemic as well?
Mr Robin Swann: No, I would accept it because that’s where – I suppose that’s where the information was coming from, you know, from all other sources, was coming through us, yeah.
Lead 2C: But I think just to be clear, so that it is understood, it is not as though the TEO had any other body of advice, advice that covered that.
Mr Robin Swann: Not from a health – from the health perspective it would be coming from the Department of Health, yes.
Lead 2C: Obviously I accept your point that when it comes to civil contingencies there is a broader picture that needs to be looked at but I think the important point is that, as it were, the – conveying the advice and the information did in fact fall I think on your shoulders and then the CMO as well; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: All right.
So, just again, I think that taking this in stages, you then again attended COBR on 18 February, I don’t think we need to bring it up, but the understanding that this might escalate to a global pandemic does appear to have crystallised in and around that time. Do you agree with that?
Mr Robin Swann: If that’s what’s recorded in the minutes, yeah, it was around that time that there was an understanding that China wasn’t going to be able to control it.
Lead 2C: Yes, and I think in fact we probably should just bring that up just so that we’re clear about that.
So if we could go to the COBR minutes, it’s INQ000056227, please. And if we could go to paragraph 1, please.
Again, Mr Swann, I just do this to set the scene.
Thank you. I think that’s lovely, that can come down, thank you – oh, just that paragraph, please. If we could go back to the document.
Sorry, I think you might have just caught it, it was set out underneath, the fact that the two scenarios I think at that stage were regarded as plausible. I did not want to mislead you, Mr Swann.
Thank you, if we could look at paragraph 2.
So I think at that stage what was being said was that both –
Mr Robin Swann: Both remained, yeah.
Lead 2C: Again, just understanding that from a Northern Ireland perspective, obviously when presented with those two contingencies, as we understand it, and as you’ve said, you were preparing for, as it were, the worst case.
If we could go, please, to page 7, and the final bullet, please.
And again we’ve – just above paragraph 17, Mr Swann, we can see again this was planning for a reasonable worst-case scenario.
And if that could just come down, please.
We can see reference to the Northern Ireland Strategic Civil Contingencies Group meeting. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And I assume that what was being – what COBR was being informed was that this was the meeting that was going to address the reasonable worst-case scenario in Northern Ireland.
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And is that information that you would have provided or is that something that would have been provided from the Executive Office, do you think?
Mr Robin Swann: I think that was – if I am correct, I think that was the meeting that Dr Chada, as the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, made the presentation to.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Thank you, that can come down.
It appears to the Inquiry that that meeting that took place on 20 February was the first civil contingencies meeting that took place at all across government in Northern Ireland. Is that your understanding?
Mr Robin Swann: That would be my understanding, yes.
Lead 2C: Did you have any concerns at this time about the slow – and I say this, I’m not suggesting that it was your responsibility, but the fact that there hadn’t been any sort of cross-departmental meeting until this date?
Mr Robin Swann: It wouldn’t have been a concern at that point in time, because I – you know, I suppose I’m looking at it from a health point of view, of what we were doing, the information that we were providing to other departments. But in hindsight in regards to that Executive Office civil contingencies – CCPB(NI) responsibility, would have been concerned that it was taking them longer to stand up and actually getting into gear than I would expect now.
Lead 2C: Yes.
If we could just look at the – and we’ve seen this, but again, I would just like to ask you about it, the minutes of that meeting – INQ000023220.
We’ve seen, and I think we probably only need to look at the priorities.
Again, given that this was 20 February, and that the departments regarded this as being the priorities, would that or the fact that it – I mean, it certainly appears that this is a very limited set of considerations, given all that had been said by COBR about planning for the reasonable worst-case scenario, that this, in Northern Ireland, is what the priorities are identified as at the first meeting?
Mr Robin Swann: I think in regards to the briefing, that – and again that was actually presented to that group – and I think if you read through the full presentation that was actually given by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer in regards to our concerns or the Department of Health concerns. And I’m slightly, I would say, surprised as regards that – of the officials who were present that this was the four that they identified, but maybe it was – in regards to those were priorities that they saw stretching across each department rather than being from a Health point of view, in regards to that, that’s something that all departments should be aware of.
Lead 2C: We’ve seen Dr Chada’s presentation, and I won’t take you to it, but we’ve seen that he does, for example, identify the possibility of excess deaths and his presentation might be thought to have been quite realistic in that it set out, for example, the case fatality rate, so it’s not an issue about the information that he provided, I think, but more perhaps that this appears to have been the response to it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, and I think that – sorry if I’m not conveying that clearly –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – but I think when it comes to the cross-departmental response to what Dr Chada had actually presented that these are the four priorities that are pointed out but, again, I think the last point, “All organisation[s] to review business continuity plans in light of reasonable worst case parameters”, should be an indication then – if that’s been raised at CCG(NI), surely the department – so, in my view, that those cross-departmental officials who were present at that meeting should actually be going back to their departments, to their ministers and saying, “Look, this is what was discussed, this was what a priority from CCG(NI) actually is, as of 20 February”.
Lead 2C: Can I just ask you, that final paragraph refers to “business continuity plans”; is that about their internal ability to –
Mr Robin Swann: Probably in regards to Civil Service speak but, again, as I’m saying it, if you’re going back – if you’re a civil servant going back to a permanent secretary or a minister and saying “We have to get our house in order because this is the reasonable worst-case scenario”, to me that should be ringing an alarm bell.
Lead 2C: Yes. “Should” might be the operative word, but looking at that, do you agree that that might be regarded as an underwhelming response to the level of concern that ought to have been sounding around departments at this stage?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to, and my Lady, having seen Dr Chada’s presentation, which you say was a realistic briefing as to the current situation, it would be, yes.
Lead 2C: All right.
I think, again, I’m not going to go back, I won’t take you to this, but you attended another COBR meeting on 26 February, and what I wanted to ask you was whether you agree that again the picture building was one of increasing concern because of, for example, transmission into Italy and other – and what was happening as well in Italy as well?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: Is that, was that something that you were conscious of or –
Mr Robin Swann: It is, my Lady, because by that stage I’d already made a number of statements to the Northern Ireland Assembly as well, so it was in such, I suppose, in my perception that it was important enough to be doing that.
Lead 2C: Can I just take you to one of those, please.
Let’s go to INQ000425519.
This is the – this is an announcement, if that’s the correct way to put it, that you gave.
Just, again, for the date, it’s 28 February.
If we could go, I think, to page 3 of this.
I may need someone to help me with where we find it, but this said – and it may be that I need to take you to another page, Mr Swann, but this announcement said that whilst the situation was serious, that it was far – and that it was far from certain that it would happen – thank you – “detailed plans” were in place should the virus become a pandemic.
That idea that by the end of February, and this was for a speech or an announcement that you were going to give on 1 March 2020, that it was far from certain that it would happen, that it would become a pandemic, was that your understanding at the time?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I think it was still, you know, going back to the two options, still being considered even at the minutes of the COBR meeting, there was still – the options were still there. And again, at this case, it’s not about – I suppose, again, as in regards to wording of a statement that was being made to the Northern Ireland Assembly rather than going into the detail that the two options are still in play, even though – that I am saying that it is – the situation is no doubt serious, but stressing the point that in relation cases were very much still in containment phase.
Lead 2C: No one was saying at that stage, were they, that it was far from certain that it would develop into a pandemic, were they?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, not, not generally, but again in regards to the wording of that statement, it may have been an underestimation in regards to where we were at that point but not to be, I suppose, alerting or causing unnecessary alarm either in regards to the wording of it.
Lead 2C: Almost immediately after this there was another Executive Committee meeting, and others who have attended that meeting have said that that was the first substantive discussion that took place about Covid-19. So that was 2 March. Does that also accord with your recollection?
Mr Robin Swann: I think it was, we had had – and again, I suppose it’s the use of the adjective “substantive”, my Lady, in regards to it’s the first time it moves into a standalone agenda item rather than being discussed as an update under “Any other business”. So in regards to that, yes, but I think we had – and again the handwritten notes of those other meetings show that there has been an exchange in regards to ministers interacting or asking questions.
Lead 2C: I haven’t taken you back through all of the notes of the meetings in February because that would probably take quite a lot of time, but I think it’s right, isn’t it, that by and large it’s a question of you providing an update to your colleagues about the position, the notes would suggest it’s fairly short and that there isn’t a – there’s no detailed discussion afterwards. Do you accept that?
Mr Robin Swann: And I suppose that’s, when I said earlier on in regards to, you know, me not raising it as a serious enough issue, at that stage I was still on the understanding that I was – as you say, you’re, you know, providing an update to ministers because I was aware that there was engagement being had by permanent secretaries at CCG(NI), you know, so, in my view, at that point I was updating ministers as to what I thought they already should have been aware of from their officials, but now in retrospect, and I’ve seen the evidence from Minister Weir, my Lady, and I think whereas that actually hadn’t been the case in his case.
Lead 2C: We also know from Mr Pengelly’s evidence that in fact I think up until about 21 February he was still giving the advice that there was no need for the civil contingencies arrangements to be stood up in Northern Ireland, I think, again, that idea unless and until the virus arrived in Northern Ireland.
Again, were you aware at that time that that was the advice that was being given by the permanent secretary?
Mr Robin Swann: I was – sorry, I wasn’t aware, as I said, specifically at that time that we were saying don’t stand up NICCMA but on reflection in regards to – as I’ve said to the previous answer, as to when it was necessary to stand it up and move into that response phase, I do think we could have possibly moved earlier, again to raise that red flag to other departments, to other Executive bodies, and I’m very much in agreement with what David Sterling was saying in his evidence.
Lead 2C: Do you think, and again maybe this is a judgement in retrospect, that throughout February 2020 there was a failure to understand quite how serious the picture was that had accrued and the information that had accrued over that period of time?
Mr Robin Swann: And again, asking from a retrospective point of view, I wouldn’t agree there was a lack of understanding I may – and I’ve said this, I think that the failure may have been in the level of the alert or the seriousness that was moved up, and again it goes back to – I think it was the Chief Medical Officer who sort of coined the phrase – of that rising tide event. I’m not sure as each level went up that we were ringing the bell loud enough as it went on, for other departments, other ministers in other areas actually to take up their actions and their responsibilities as well.
Lead 2C: Again, just getting a sort of, coming to the end of February, what was being done in your department – again, I’m just coming back to what must have been a growing understanding on your part that this would require surveillance infrastructure, that it would require testing infrastructure, tracing infrastructure; what was your understanding about capabilities in Northern Ireland to deal with that?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, and I suppose at that stage it was – in regards to testing capabilities there was no test, I suppose in the early days in regards to Covid and I’m not sure of work in February being done to develop tests, but once the genome became available I know our virology lab in Belfast was actually one of the first 13 sites across the UK that was able to test.
So those sort of steps and preparation were being put in place in regards to test and – you know, the – tracing capability, and I think, my Lady, you know, it was often portrayed that tracing was a new development just because of Covid but we already had a division within our PHA in regards to actually that tracing capability, although not large in regards to that.
I do know now, and again from the Inquiry, unfortunately, that the PHA wasn’t in a robust situation, a robust enough situation, to scale up at pace as was necessary or could have been done when the tests became available as well.
So there was much work being done. And again, it’s the phrase “in the background” in regards to the preparation, the letter in the document you’ve shared from the Chief Medical Officer indicates, you know, as we moved from the establishment of silver, the activation of gold, as to where those responsibilities and asks were actually coming.
Lead 2C: Just, first of all, testing, obviously I think a test was – I will get the exact date, but I think tests were available at a point in January, but obviously that’s a different question from the ability to scale up testing, and what was being done by your department to understand what challenges there might be to doing that? That’s the first question.
Then the second question is obviously the PHA was an extremely small organisation; correct? And its ability to carry out tracing and the limitations must have been very obvious from an early stage.
Sorry, those are two separate questions.
Mr Robin Swann: And again in regards to testing – you know, the early test that was developed, there is no – and again, not coming from that laboratory/scientific background that was – but the analysis that those tests were – you know, and I think, my Lady, we now become used to, you know, the lateral flow tests that everybody expects, that is where it was, and we were using highly complicated equipment within our virology lab in Belfast. We were able to expand that out across lab equipment elsewhere, you know, from our universities, actually AFBI as well. Part of our Department of Agricultural provided their lab facilities as well. So there was work being done, I’m not sure if it was specifically in that stage in early February or where that kicked in, but we did establish an expert advisory group on testing that looked at the different avenues and different opportunities that we had across Northern Ireland in regards to PHA and the testing.
I think in regards to those initial phases as to how we did contact or the follow-up tracing wasn’t – was there but not there as a facility that could be expanded quickly enough. But then again, it was reliant on testing as well. But again, I know there are some challenges and deficiencies within the PHA in regards to that testing capability, which weren’t brought to my attention at that point in time, as we moved on again – and I am jumping quite a bit –
Lead 2C: I suppose what I’m asking you about is your awareness of that and your understanding of that in this crucial planning phase, that key parts of the response to the pandemic in Northern Ireland were actually quite seriously understaffed and –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: – at subpar capability?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, and I think, my Lady, that does go back to, I think, some of the opening comments in regards to that lack of investment that we actually had in health. And when I talk about investment in health, it’s not just about the hospitals, it’s the wider structure as well, so also our arm’s length bodies as well in regards to that.
Lead 2C: But taking that as read, and going back to the planning that was going on, can we assume then that in the planning and at this critical phase you didn’t understand that there were likely to be quite serious limitations, for example, on what the PHA could actually do?
Mr Robin Swann: No, it wasn’t that, because I do remember, I think it was the first case we had, it was – I actually visited our contact tracing centre in Belfast, Linenhall Street, and was very impressed with the set-up they had, the ability to scale it up as to a small number of cases but not to the extent that we eventually saw.
Lead 2C: Right.
Lady Hallett: Is that a convenient moment?
Ms Dobbin: It’s a good time to break, thank you.
Lady Hallett: Very well, I shall return at 1.45.
(12.45 pm)
(The short adjournment)
(1.45 pm)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you, my Lady.
Mr Swann, before the adjournment, we had just looked at what you said to the Northern Ireland Assembly on 1 March, and that you had conveyed that it was far from certain that Covid-19 would develop into a pandemic. I think where we had gotten to then was what you conveyed on 2 March to the Executive Committee meeting.
If we could perhaps, please, bring that up at INQ000065694, please.
Again, just to see the date of that, it’s 2 March, and we can see that you provided an initial update confirming that the first positive case had been recorded in Northern Ireland. We can see reference to the legislation.
If we go over the page, please, I think we can see that the CMO attended this meeting.
If we go over the page, please, to page 3, I think that we can see then some of the information that was being provided at the top:
“Most people – minor illness – like [a] cold.
“98% will get better.”
I think we also see at the bottom, the Chief Medical Officer continued:
“Tough decisions.”
I think if we just go over the page, please, I think we see reference to not being inevitable either.
Sorry, I think it’s at the bottom of that page. Yes:
“Modelling …
“Contain …”
So that’s a reference to Northern Ireland being in the contain phase, isn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: And:
“Not inevitable.”
Again, was that part of the same message that was being conveyed, that Northern Ireland was in the contain phase and that it wasn’t inevitable that this would become a pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: So even at 2 March that was still the message being conveyed to your ministerial colleagues?
Mr Robin Swann: From the same(?) at that point, yes.
Lead 2C: Okay.
Mr Robin Swann: But again, because, you know, we:
“Need to … prepared for weeks …”
This would be for weeks, at most months.
“… [very] Transmissible virus …”
Lead 2C: Yes. I think, again, it’s just understanding what the understanding of your colleagues would have been at this stage, based on the advice that was being given to them by the CMO.
I think that can come down, please.
I think just in terms of again what was being advised or what you were being briefed about in and around this time, I think if we could go, please, to INQ000425611, please.
So, again, this was a briefing for the Executive.
I think if we go over the page, please, to page 2, and if we look at paragraph 2:
“WHO have announced that the outbreak has reached a stage where it can be described as a pandemic. This does not have any material implications for how we respond to the outbreak in Northern Ireland.”
Mr Robin Swann: I think –
Lead 2C: Can you explain that, because that might seem like an extraordinary thing to have been said in a briefing?
Mr Robin Swann: I think what that is attempting to describe in regards to that document is that although WHO have now announced that the stage can be described as pandemic, it hasn’t made any changes as to how Northern Ireland is currently responding or the preparation work that is being done.
Lead 2C: Just again, help us with what that work was, in actual fact, and what was being done on any sort of cross-departmental basis –
Mr Robin Swann: Well, again, that’s –
Lead 2C: – to prepare for the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: Sorry, that’s the point, at 16 March, where those NPIs were starting to be talked about across COBR as well in regards to actually that preparation for what was going to become the national lockdown, in regards to that a week later on 23 March. So I think taking that one paragraph in context, and the rest of the document, my Lady, is actually saying that, although it has been now announced that the World Health Organisation is describing it as a pandemic, it’s not having any material impact on the other actions that are actually happening.
And if you look down through the rest of the paper there, paragraph 4 now expands as to what is actually being talked about there in regards to what had been talked about at the ministerial meeting on 12 March in regards to no school closures as of yet.
“FCO and DHSC will change travel advice for those over 70 and/or with underlying health conditions …”
So it’s really about getting ready for that, and that announcement from World Health Organisation hasn’t changed that direction of travel.
Lead 2C: Again, I’m just going to focus on, I suppose, what alarm bells were, as it were, being rung in Northern Ireland in and around this stage. You had previously said in the course of your evidence about the gold group being convened, and are we to understand that that was a significant step as well within the Department of Health?
Mr Robin Swann: It is, it’s a significant step, yeah. It’s a reaction.
Lead 2C: I think what you say in your witness statement, though, and I just want to check that this is correct, and I’m looking – if we need to go to it I will – and this is your, I think, January – it’s your statement of 15 January. You say at paragraph 27:
“An extraordinary meeting of the Top Management Group was held on 4 March 2020.”
And you refer to a note that:
“… confirmed [that] the Top Management Group’s agreement to the full activation of the Health Gold Command was circulated the following day, advising that the Strategic Cell had been convened and would have its first meeting on 9 March 2020.”
So can you just help, then, was that the strategic group being convened on that date?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to, I think, paragraph 27, regards to that the strategic cell had been convened.
Lead 2C: So it seems to suggest that the top management group’s agreement to the full activation of the health gold command in fact took place on 5 March 2020; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: And again, that’s the full activation. There’s a number of steps that had been taken in regards to building that up, in regards to, you know, the correspondence had already been evidenced earlier on in regards to coming from the Chief Medical Officer, to Valerie Watts, to the Health and Social Care Board, as to the gradual increase as to the full activation of gold.
Lead 2C: Having looked at this strategic cell that had been set up, that is in fact, isn’t it, the – or part of its role was to provide strategic direction and advice to HSC organisations and to you; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: So why was that cell providing strategic advice to you not set up until this point in time in March? Again, that might be thought to be very late in the day indeed.
Mr Robin Swann: Again, I suppose in retrospect, my Lady, I was receiving that strategic advice from my permanent secretary and the Chief Medical Officer and his team, the Chief Social Worker and the Chief Nurse, in regards to what needed to be done, but it is the formalisation and the step-up of that cell at that point in time, whereas it – it’s a formalised structure rather than the more one-to-one briefings that I had been receiving.
Lead 2C: So are you suggesting that the activation of the cell in fact made no difference to the advice that you were receiving at that point in time in any event?
Mr Robin Swann: It was the more formalised structure in regards to that advice coming through, so it gave it a structure to be delivered to me as gold strategic cell rather than coming from those individual chief officers and policy leads.
Lead 2C: What does that add that wasn’t there previously?
Mr Robin Swann: I think it’s the formal structure, that the actions has actually been taken at a gold level rather than coming from the individual cells that had been previously activated.
Lead 2C: But in substance what difference does it make?
Mr Robin Swann: In substance the briefing papers still come, I suppose it’s the culmination of where they come from, whether it’s an overarching body or from a single cell or policy lead as an individual.
Lead 2C: Can we look at the note, I think, that was generated by the first meeting of that group on 9 March – it’s at INQ000433481 – and look at the actions. We see there the first action:
“Possibility of invoking NICCMA to involve TEO further, to be discussed further with CMO.”
This is 9 March, Mr Swann. Why was the possibility of invoking NICCMA still being discussed only as a possibility within your department at this time?
Mr Robin Swann: I wasn’t part of that meeting, and as I’ve said earlier on, and in my statement, I agree with David Sterling as where I could have seen a possibility of the benefit of standing NICCMA up earlier than it actually did, to actually raise alarm bells or raising issues across the rest of the other departments.
So, again, it goes back to, again, the position at that point being taken by the permanent secretary and the Chief Medical Officer, as that wasn’t the right point in actually activating NICCMA. Although, as I said, you know, in previous engagements this morning that there was other options, other bodies who could activate NICCMA, my Lady, in regards, but not being part of that meeting or that context as to why it was still being considered only a possibility at that stage, I can’t comment further, because then it moves on to say that that issue should be discussed further with the CMO.
Lead 2C: Yes, well, I think maybe that’s the point, that whether or not Northern Ireland’s civil contingency arrangements in the TEO ought to be set up is a matter of discussion with the CMO.
Again, that might be thought quite surprising, that the Chief Medical Officer would have a role in potentially deciding whether or not the arrangements should be stood up or whether or not even TEO ought to be involved further at this point in time.
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I think, as has been discussed in earlier evidence sessions, the TEO has the ability to initiate NICCMA on its own and I think there is commentary around from the head of Civil Service at that time and officers with CCPB(NI) in regards to actually they would wait on the Chief Medical Officer’s request, which I think is incorrect in my understanding, that they could have actually invoked NICCMA on their own at that point.
Lead 2C: But do you agree what this reflects is that your department thought that it was its role to decide whether or not or that it was in the driving seat as to whether or not Northern Ireland’s civil contingency arrangements should be stood up?
Mr Robin Swann: No, I – sorry – and again it’s difficult, my Lady, because I wasn’t at the meeting and it’s – you know, it’s a two – not even two full lines of what was there, so – from an action point. I still think it indicates that there’s a possibility of invoking NICCMA by the Department of Health and to involve TEO further and that was to a point that was actually to be discussed further with the CMO.
Lead 2C: If we go on, please, to the meeting that took place the next day at the Executive Committee, INQ000065695.
This is now on 10 March. I think we can see that, again, you’re updating the Executive Committee as to what was going on, and I think you do say there a couple of points up from the bottom:
“Looking to other [departments] for co-ordination.”
Then if we go over the page, I think we see reference to organisations taking their own advice and reference to St Patrick’s Day.
I think to the deputy First Minister saying:
“[Executive] approach needs to kick in – all need to contribute.”
That’s just a few lines up from the bottom of the page.
Then if we go over the page to page 3, the First Minister asking:
“Civil Contingencies.
“– have we got plans to handle?”
And references to departments needing advice.
It does appear that even by 10 March 2020, that there was no sense of any sort of cross-departmental response to Covid-19 in Northern Ireland; do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: I would agree that that is what is clearly demonstrated here, and I think it comes on actually later on, my Lady. And apologies for jumping forward, but I think that – there’s a letter I sent to FM and dFM, I think it’s about 29 March –
Lead 2C: Yes –
Mr Robin Swann: – where I actually highlight that.
So, I think the note – and again, I stress the handwritten notes from this meeting aren’t verbatim, but I think it shows the deputy First Minister and First Minister actually looking to their officials, looking to HOCS, saying, you know, “Where is our co-ordinated – where is our co-ordinated response? You know, have we got plans to handle this? Where’s the advice to the organisations?”
So it’s the First Minister and deputy First Minister, you know, asking out loud in an Executive meeting to officials who are there, you know, “What are we doing in regards to this?”
Lead 2C: Mr Swann, it might be thought, again, I don’t want to overstate this, but utterly extraordinary that by 10 March questions were being asked about: do we have plans for civil contingencies, a cross-departmental approach needs to kick in?
I mean, what was actually being done across Northern Ireland at this point by the government?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, my Lady, I can speak on behalf of the Department of Health in regards to what was being done. We were undertaking – we’d raised our surge plans, we’d moved from silver, we’d moved to gold, we were issuing advice and guidance to our arm’s length bodies and to those organisations that were relying on us to do that, we were providing briefings to Northern Ireland civil contingencies, CCG(NI), my permanent secretary was engaging –
Lady Hallett: Slower, please.
Mr Robin Swann: Sorry, apologies.
Lady Hallett: I appreciate you trying to save time.
So I got to “briefings to civil contingencies”. You then said your permanent secretary …
Mr Robin Swann: My permanent secretary was engaging with his counterparts as well as regards to that. So I think from a cross-government response, I honestly cannot answer to that but I know what we were doing within the Department of Health. And I referred earlier on, my Lady, to that – that point that minute, that it gets exchanged between TEO officials in regards to 4 March in regards to when the Chief Medical Officer and myself visited the Northern Ireland hub as to see what was there, and it’s obvious now from what I’ve seen, from what I know from this briefing, that that central organisation was understaffed, it was struggling. That would have been highlighted continually, I think, at that TEO level, but it wasn’t until the First and deputy First Minister actually raised these issues, I think quite rightly at that point, that the rest of government, the rest of that civil contingencies approach actually kicks in.
Ms Dobbin: First of all, going to the hub, there wasn’t a hub until much, much later in March, so, I mean, there isn’t even a question of there being a hub in existence –
Mr Robin Swann: Sorry, there’s a physical – there is –
Lead 2C: There’s a space?
Mr Robin Swann: There is a physical hub that has computers and all the rest of it and different stalls and sets, so that is where we actually went at that point in time. So there is a physical entity.
Lead 2C: Yes, but obviously having a room that’s empty and that isn’t playing any sort of part in co-ordinating departments across Northern Ireland isn’t going to be much good to anyone?
Mr Robin Swann: No, and it wasn’t and I think that’s the point, and I think, knowing what I know now, I had expected that to be staffed up, I had expected it to be functional and ready to kick in as and when it was asked for, but in regards to evidence I have received, evidence this Inquiry received, that wasn’t the case.
Lead 2C: But, Mr Swann, you’ve said on a number of occasions “what I know now”, but you knew at the time that those arrangements hadn’t been called for or instituted, and also you knew that your department had advised that they didn’t need to be set up as well?
Mr Robin Swann: But what I – what I didn’t know then was that there wasn’t an ability, there wasn’t a structure to stand up in regards to that, so it was always moving up to that point. If we had have asked for them – and again, it goes back to that correspondence – if we’d asked for the hub to activated, that there is a clear indication that the staff wasn’t there to do that, that’s the bit that I still find, and do find concerning, that that staff, during that time, during February – end of January, February, even into the start of March, that there wasn’t a central effort being made. I actually did put processes and people into place so that when it was called for that it was actually being able to be activated.
Lead 2C: So can we just be clear about this, and not as a matter of retrospect, but at 10 March when ministers were starting to say an Executive approach needs to kick in, do you agree that there had been no cross-departmental response to Covid-19?
Mr Robin Swann: There had been cross-departmental working, we were able to do that and, again, sorry to belabour the point, but in regards to the Coronavirus Act, you know, in regards to the interaction between departments as to what was actually being done at that level, so there was engagement across departments but as to that central response, there wasn’t the detailed work that I would have expected when we actually moved to calling for the activation of NICCMA.
Lead 2C: So forgive me, if the Inquiry was seeking to identify the main thing that was done before this date to demonstrate a cross-departmental response, it would be the fact that some departments had commented on the draft legislation; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: It’s more than simply a comment. When it comes to draft legislation in regards to what the Coronavirus Act – it was actually quite a significant piece of legislation, so it’s not just the fact that they commented on it, it’s the fact they would have been analysing their part to it, their response to it, and actually what it would have meant to them.
Lead 2C: So we should focus on that, that should be what we look to in order to understand what the cross-departmental response was; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: But not only that, my Lady, I think it’s also the interactions that were being had by my permanent secretary, also by the Deputy Chief Medical Officer briefing civil contingency branches as well. So there’s a range of engagements. But if you’re talking about the physical – or, I suppose, that point where there’s a point you can actually look at and say “That’s where Northern Ireland cross-government kicked in, here’s the demonstration, here’s the paper, here’s the piece of evidence that is at that point”, I would agree with you.
Lead 2C: All right.
When you say that, are you referring to 16 March whenever NPIs came in or are you referring to 10 March?
Mr Robin Swann: I’m actually referring to 10 March where the First and deputy First Minister actually come forward and, I suppose, become engaged in that.
It’s also possibly at that point where the First and deputy First Minister prior to this meeting actually started to attend COBR as well.
Lead 2C: That’s right.
Mr Robin Swann: Because it was being led by the Prime Minister at that stage. So I think that indicates that – that involvement of TEO structures as well as an overarching body, as actually the Executive Office, as an approach to a co-ordinated response.
Lead 2C: I just want to pause before we go further and just to ask you about, again, your statement. And please, if we could have this up, it’s your 24 January statement at paragraph 66, it’s on page 26, and that’s INQ000412903.
So, again, does that capture your evidence that it was 10 March –
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: – whenever there was an understanding in Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes, but –
Lead 2C: Do you accept responsibility, Mr Swann, for the fact that it was only at 10 March that there was that understanding on the part of your ministerial colleagues that this is what was required?
Mr Robin Swann: I have said, I think, my Lady, at the beginning of this, if I hadn’t been sounding the alarm bells early enough with that level of seriousness, alarm, as has been I suppose perceived here that my other colleagues weren’t picking up on – other Executive colleagues weren’t picking up on the briefings that were being given to their permanent secretaries that weren’t being fed through, if that was a failing on my behalf at that time, I’m perfectly willing to accept that responsibility as a failure on my behalf.
Lead 2C: You said “if”.
Mr Robin Swann: Oh, sorry, I’ll remove the “if”, sorry –
Lead 2C: I’m asking you rather than more than that, whether or not you accept that you do have responsibility for colleagues not understanding until this very late stage?
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t think I’m responsible for colleagues not understanding the seriousness of Covid in regards to the outworkings of what actually happened. What I’m saying, my Lady, I think, I’ve always accepted my responsibility and accountability for the office that I hold. It’s something that I hold very serious and something that I’ve a great honour and privilege to actually hold. So if there’s a failure on my part, my behalf, to alert other ministers as to what was coming down the line, I’ll accept that.
Lead 2C: If we please go forward in time to 16 March, to INQ000065689.
This is the meeting of 16 March, Mr Swann, and obviously we can see from the information that you’re providing, I think, that there was obviously, I think, a real escalation in concern by the point of this meeting about the situation. Do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: So, for example, the fact that there may not be enough ventilators, we can see that being referred to.
If we go over the page, please, I think we see as well reference to – yes, it’s what you’re saying – Covid, just looking at the mid-point, in what you were conveying:
“COVID 19 is now with us.
“Now real.”
I think we can see at page 6, for example, reference to it being a “nightmare”.
I think, page 7, there’s reference to Northern Ireland having “Lost control”.
On page …
(Pause)
Lead 2C: It may not be on that page, Mr Swann, but let me – it’s just to help remind you of what the tenor of that meeting was like, that it was now real, it was a nightmare, that Northern Ireland had lost control, that people were terrified and there was a need to show leadership.
There’s a reference to ministers not being shouted down, to the Minister for Justice, Ms Long, saying the Executive always seems to be reacting not leading, the Minister for Infrastructure having said “We’re mismanaging”, and I think we see reference in those notes to you having said:
“We have been preparing for [the] past 7 weeks.”
That reference to “We have been preparing for past 7 weeks”, presumably that was just a reference to the Department of Health?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Again, insofar as you could see from what had been done by your colleagues or their reaction, did you have any understanding or any insight into what was being done by other departments at this stage?
Mr Robin Swann: I hadn’t, no.
Lead 2C: Do you think that your ministerial colleagues had been planning in a robust way, as you might have expected by this stage?
Mr Robin Swann: By this stage I think it becomes apparent that some of them hadn’t been, in regards to what had been expected, but it’s also – you know, the implication of that cross-departmental working as well, where everyone had a role to play.
Lead 2C: All right.
I’m not going to go through everything that happened in this meeting, because this is also the meeting at which consideration was given to whether or not to close schools. Is it right by 16 March that there weren’t any plans in Northern Ireland that schools might close?
Mr Robin Swann: No, we were still following the SAGE advice at that point in time, which was to keep them open.
Lead 2C: And that’s why, for example, there’s reference to the fact that if schools were to close, and I think we’ve seen reference to this in another minute of 12 March, your concern that it might, for example, collapse the health system because there wasn’t any contingency arrangements in place?
Mr Robin Swann: I think it’s not just in regards to the pressure it would have on the health system but at that point I was also concerned at the implications of those children who actually relied on school for free school meals, my Lady, and all the rest of it.
So at that point, as has become, I think, aware that we didn’t have the preparations to be able to close schools in a managed and controlled sort of way, so there was no – as far as I was aware at that point, no mitigations or no opportunities where we could still see those essential workers’ children being able to go and access to free – those children who relied on free school meals, those provisions actually hadn’t been made at that point. And that’s why the Executive, I think rightly, agreed that it would take a week actually to bring about school closure rather than closing them overnight.
Lead 2C: Well, I think that the vote was, first of all, whether to close schools. That was voted against. And then the vote that won the day was to close schools when the CMO advised.
It might be thought inappropriate that the decision whether to close schools would just be contingent upon what the CMO advised. Did you have any concern at that meeting that decisions like that were being regarded as a matter essentially for him rather than –
Mr Robin Swann: I did. And I don’t think it’s recorded in the minute, but it was one of those meetings where that vote was called, my Lady, as a spur of the moment vote that was called. I didn’t think it was right that we did it. The counter that left it in the hands of the CMO I thought was better than moving immediately to closing schools, which I don’t think we had, as a society, as Northern Ireland, had actually prepared for the consequences in doing that. It could have been – and I think if it had been portrayed or kept going along those lines, I think it was an unfair position to put the CMO in at that point in time.
Lead 2C: I’m going to come back to the CMO and his position in just a second, but when we get to 19 March, and again I won’t go to it, but you’ve set out in your statement of 24 January at paragraph 82 that it was only on 19 March that you realised the numbers of people that might potentially lose their lives in Northern Ireland on account of the virus and the numbers of people that might be affected; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct. And that’s going back to I think it was the briefing at COBR where they set out, you know, it was a very clear slide in regards to an 80% infection rate and a 1% mortality rate. And I’ve said this before, my Lady, I did the calculations, set them on a piece of paper, and – when I realised the number that we were talking about.
So until then we’d been talking about percentages and all the rest of it, but it wasn’t until I saw that number and what potentially we could have been facing in regards to the number of deaths, the number of bereavements, that we could be facing in Northern Ireland alone that really brought it to a level that, you know, and I think it’s referred to, that just was – took it to another level.
Lead 2C: But, Mr Swann, the percentages and the number – the percentages of people who might get infected and the percentages of people who might die had been set out a considerable time before this, so why did it take until then, first of all, for you, for the penny to drop with you and for you to convey that to your ministerial colleagues?
Mr Robin Swann: Because those percentages I think changed from February through to the end of March and at no time – and I’ve checked documentation, there’s nowhere is that calculation actually done. So it is actually a calculation I sat and done – I’m not saying myself, but, you know, and that’s – it was at that, really, as I say, I can’t explain why it wasn’t in a previous briefing as to an exact number that was there. We worked out the reasonable worst-case scenarios and other scenarios were put out and presented as well, but I think it was at that point that that clarification of that black and white number that really brought things into a very sharp focus.
Lead 2C: Again, it might seem really stark, Mr Swann, that on 25 January Scotland was able to provide an overview or advice was provided to Scotland about the potential ramifications on its health system based on WHO figures, that the Scottish Government should have that level of understanding at a very early stage and that in Northern Ireland we’re talking about, first of all, it’s 19 March, and it’s you who’s working out the figures rather than those who advised you. I mean, it might be thought, I mean, that might be thought really extraordinary now.
Mr Robin Swann: Well, in hindsight, yes, but again in regards to some of the preparation I don’t think it was solely reliant on that number in regards to what they were doing and what other departments were doing in standing up their responses as well from Department of Justice, to the Economy, to ourselves.
Lead 2C: Again, I mean, I won’t go back to the notes of 19 March but I know you’ve said that you think the penny drops at around 10 March, but, I mean, again it is right that ministerial colleagues didn’t have the sorts of numbers that – the numbers of people who might or who were at risk of losing their life at this point. That was the first time that that was spelt out to them, wasn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: I don’t think, and we’ll hear from the First Minister and the deputy First Minister when they give evidence, but it doesn’t appear that they were in receipt of any sort of detailed medical or scientific advice before this point either. Do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: I’m not sure in regards to what advice, I can’t speak to that.
Lead 2C: I won’t press you on that.
I want to go to a different point, though, that links to this.
If we could go, please, to INQ000308444, and to page 3 of this, please.
This is a message – I’m looking at 24 March – it’s not a message that was sent to you, Mr Swann, it’s a message between Sir David Sterling and the Chief Medical Officer, and it relates to a meeting that took place on 24 March, and we can see that the CMO referred to the Executive having “lost the run” of itself, and that “it turned into a cross examination”, but perhaps this is the most important point:
“They are now frankly getting in the way of a co-ordinated effective response and making demands on my time and our … team in health that we simply can’t facilitate.”
That can come down, please.
I’m sure that you accept, Mr Swann, that no response to a pandemic can be driven entirely by officials?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And that ultimately these – I mean, that these matters couldn’t be more grave, that they were a matter for the collective responsibility of the Executive Committee. Do you accept that?
Mr Robin Swann: I would, and – as it started, my Lady, that’s when we were talking about the Ministerial Code and I referred to paragraph 2.4 in regards to –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – my responsibilities as to what I was actually bringing back to the Executive. And again, my Lady, I’m not sure what the conversation was in regards to where that point or that exchange was during an Executive meeting or what specifically it referred to as, I think, has been indicated. I wasn’t part of that exchange.
Lead 2C: But I think what might be thought of rather more concern was the idea that the Executive were getting in the way of a response as opposed to being the people who were responsible and accountable for it, not the Chief Medical Officer.
Mr Robin Swann: That’s not my – that’s not my position, it’s not my comment, it’s not my message, so, you know –
Lead 2C: No, quite so. I think I’m asking really whether you agree, first of all, that that is right, that it was for them and that they were both responsible and accountable –
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: – to the people of Northern Ireland for the response?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: And whether or not, I suppose, you have any concerns at the CMO seeing them as potentially getting in the way of the response?
Mr Robin Swann: And, as I say, I’m not sure of the context or when that exchange was being made, if it was being made between officials, Chief Medical Officer, permanent secretaries, so it would be hard for me – it’s hard for me to judge. But as far as being an elected representative, it was for the Executive to make those decisions.
Lead 2C: Yes, and in terms of the role of the Chief Medical Officer, we know that the Chief Scientific Adviser only came back into his post at around this time. Is it right to see the Chief Medical Officer as being the principal figure responsible for providing all of the advice up until this point to you and then to the Executive Committee?
Mr Robin Swann: And I think on Friday’s presentation with the Chief Medical Officer, he was supported by a strong team of deputy chief medical officers and the assistance of the senior medical officers in there as well and that was synthesised, it was the direction of travel, it was the path of, I suppose, communication and engagement was through the Chief Medical Officer.
Lead 2C: Yes, but from your perspective, I mean, obviously that then means that I think the Chief Medical Officer is the person who decides what advice and information goes into the briefings provided to you; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: I’m not sure if he was signing off on all the briefings, my Lady, in regards to where – they could have came from the Chief Social Worker, Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer – you know, there are other avenues of getting advice and guidance to me. In regards to the specifics round the pandemic, and at this point in time, I do believe that the point of travel and the point of engagement was through the Chief Medical Officer’s office, yes.
Lead 2C: Yes, and I am just focusing on the response to the pandemic, as opposed to the other specific responsibilities that people like the Chief Social Worker might have had, but I just want to understand whether or not you regarded him as being the principal source of advice and information to you?
Mr Robin Swann: At that point in time, yes.
Lead 2C: And that he controlled essentially what was provided to you, or did you see underlying papers, what other people said?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, any – I suppose any submission that was coming to me, I’m not sure he had Executive approval or authority to say yes or no, I would say that, my Lady, my understanding, but that would have been coming from my permanent secretary in regards to those structures as well. So I’m not sure that that cut-off point or ability to say yes or no rested solely with the Chief Medical Officer. I can’t speak to that.
Lead 2C: But even if you can’t speak to that, it’s a very straightforward question: did you regard him as your principal adviser on the response to the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Can we move on, please, to the letter you’ve referred to, Mr Swann, that you wrote on 29 March.
It’s at INQ000023229. We can pick it up at paragraph 3.
You said that:
“… we – as a system – have largely been in reactive mode.”
And that that wasn’t intended as a criticism.
I think if we just follow this on down, please, and at paragraph 3, that:
“… colleagues [would] recognise that, whilst the Department of Health is at the forefront of many of the issues, this is an issue that impacts all sectors …”
If we could go over the page, please, and look at the final paragraph, you set out:
“In that context, I feel it would be useful if, on Monday, we could hear from colleagues in the Executive Office about their own strategic planning work, and get a sense of that overarching regional strategy.
“I look forward to the discussion …”
Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: So, again, does this demonstrate that lack of responsiveness on the part of departments up and until this point in time?
Mr Robin Swann: I think it’s – I think it was a polite way of asking the First and deputy First Minister to ask other departments, other ministers, to take on some of the work that we would be doing rather than – and I still think around that time my frustration was that the pandemic, that Covid was still being seen solely through a health prism in regards to who – how they react and what are – the reaction actually fell on, and it was asking for that, I suppose, openness about the strategy planning work that was being done elsewhere.
Lead 2C: I think what we said, and we may have skipped over it, on the first page, was that you said you would be happy to explain where the department had reached. Yes, it’s the penultimate paragraph.
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: That you would be happy to share with colleagues where the Department of Health had reached?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: So can we assume that up until that point in time, there hadn’t been any sort of detailed briefing to ministerial colleagues about the planning, not just within the Department of Health, but across all of social care as well?
Mr Robin Swann: No, I think in regards to there’s actually a detailed paper and presentation that we made on 29 March to the Executive in regards to an update as to our Covid emergency response, I think, I can’t remember the exact name of the paper, but we did present on 29 March, of all the steps that we had taken across health and social care.
Lead 2C: My question was a different one, Mr Swann, it was whether or not before this point ministerial colleagues had been provided with that kind of detailed work to demonstrate what was being done in the Department of Health and in respect of all of social care in Northern Ireland as well?
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t think they would have received a detailed briefing from me on the operational work of my department up until that point, no.
Lead 2C: Again, Mr Swann, in the context of a global pandemic that Northern Ireland was now feeling the full force of, and obviously at this stage there was also a lockdown, the idea that that planning and that that work just sat within your department, without, for example, the deputy First Minister or the First Minister understanding it, might be thought of as – again, I’m afraid I’m going to use the word “extraordinary” again, that that should not be the subject of the most intense cross-government scrutiny and understanding?
Mr Robin Swann: And I don’t think it was any – no intentional response from ours that it sat or was presented like that, I was always open to engagement and that’s why I’m writing to the First and deputy First Minister at that point in regards to, you know, here is what we have done to date, here is what we’re doing, I’m happy to present it to the Executive for you actually to scrutinise, for you to ask what we’d done, what we were doing, in regards to that.
Lead 2C: I think if we just, you’ve mentioned this presentation on 29 March.
If we could just, please, go to INQ000065748, please.
So I think this is the meeting of 30 March, and I think if we could go, please, to – we can just see, sorry, forgive me, at the bottom of the page we can see that it’s a presentation, I think by the head of the Civil Service.
And if we just go on, please, to page 4, what I think we’ve seen is the presentation that was given by the head of the Civil Service.
And then we can see – just pick it up from the deputy First Minister – that it was:
“Useful – [but there was a] need to populate it with health [information].”
That it was a:
“Collective [Executive] responsibility.
“Joined up working.
“[Executive] – not just health alone …”
Reference to, I think, working together.
“Look forward to populating.”
I think if we go on, please, to page 23, we see reference at the top to the department, and you can take it from me this is – I think you already know this, this is the deputy First Minister referring to the Department of Health as seeing the Executive as a thorn in its side. Yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: Isn’t the reason for that, and what we’ve just picked up from those papers, that there was a departmental presentation and a cross-departmental presentation being given but that there wasn’t any health information, as it were, in it, that the Department of Health hadn’t contributed to this cross-departmental briefing?
Mr Robin Swann: I think, and again I’ve said in my statement I wasn’t aware the deputy First Minister had made that comment until I seen the hand transcribed notes, but to go back to the substantive parts, there was two presentations actually to that Executive meeting. There was the department itself’s emergency response strategy, which was actually presented and at the same time the head of Civil Service presented a draft Executive strategy and plan for future work, so there was actually two documents presented at that stage. The one coming from the Executive Office was in draft format, it didn’t actually finalise the presentation, I think the final presentation wasn’t until 28 May where that final paper came together.
So we’d two different presentations, with our Department of Health emergency response strategy and the Executive’s draft strategy and plan for future work, and I think what was requested there that Health should merge its way into the Executive paper as well, because at that point we’d been asked to present where Health was, and we’d done that.
Lead 2C: If we just go to what you said in response or after that meeting.
It’s at INQ000438904, and page 1, please.
We can see that on – we can see the time that you were emailing at, the early hours of the morning, and we can see that you were thanking those who had worked on a document over the weekend. You’re referring to the CMO apologising for the time lost, reference to there not being a view of the strategic direction but rather ministers reverting to asking about testing and PPE; “It was disappointing that the … parting dig”, so it would appear that you did –
Mr Robin Swann: That’s right, I had – sorry, I apologise, my Lady, I don’t – I did not mean to mislead the Inquiry in any shape or form.
Lead 2C: Yes, and that you had had a number of phone calls, but I think just focusing on the first paragraph, that the document had been produced largely to placate the demands from other Executive colleagues, and again was that how you saw the integration of the Health response, or the information to be provided to ministerial colleagues, as something to placate them rather than something that was absolutely vital and necessary that they understood and integrated into the response?
Mr Robin Swann: I think as regards that specific document that we presented there had been a lot of questions in regards to what we were doing, and it was always that focus on what’s Health doing. And, again, I referred to it earlier on as that section at each Executive meeting, where it was: what’s Health, where’s Health, where’s testing, where’s PPE, in regards – and that’s what that document was actually to do. And “placate” isn’t meant in that stage, I don’t think, as an insult as to the requests of Executive colleagues but it was to meet the requests in a single document, single format, where we could actually demonstrate to other ministerial colleagues as to what we were doing, what we had done.
So it wasn’t about – it wasn’t about them and us, it was about here is – it was actually about a physical presentation demonstration as to all the steps that had been taken.
Lead 2C: Because, Mr Swann, this coincides with email correspondence that the Inquiry has seen, albeit that the deputy First Minister and First Minister haven’t been asked to give evidence about it yet, whereby certainly the deputy First Minister was setting out her concerns to Sir Richard Sterling about their sense of lack of control over the response to the pandemic and specifically the concern about your department, and I think I’m going to summarise it, if I may, but essentially acting in quite a unilateral way and the First Minister, although not putting it in those terms, being concerned about the information that was coming from your department. What I was going to ask you is whether or not, in the course of your evidence today, you’ve in fact maybe demonstrated what the problem was, that you saw everything from a health perspective, and from a Department of Health perspective, without necessarily seeing any of the wider significance across Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: I wouldn’t say I didn’t appreciate or understand the wider significance but in regards to, I think it was in your opening statement, the breadth of the portfolio, and the response that we were having to take, as health minister my focus in regards to presenting to the Executive was as health minister on health issues, the economy minister was responsible for economy, the education minister responsible for education, and again, my Lady, I am now aware of the frustrations of the First and deputy First Minister through this Inquiry, I only wish they’d expressed them at the time to myself in regards to how they were perceiving how they thought I was perceiving them, because that was in no way intentional.
And if we go back to that email of the 29th, I am actually asking in regards to how we can engage and bring those two things together, so it wasn’t about trying to set up those mechanisms, I am now through, I think, presentations and media reporting from last week in regards to how there was actually such a concern that senior civil servants were exploring ways of allowing TEO to step in and either replace me as health minister or take over that – the running of the department.
My Lady, if – I think by this stage I’d an open and honest enough relationship with the First and deputy First Minister. If they had these concerns, I only wish they’d have come to me and said, rather than it being populated through emails and within TEO.
Lead 2C: Well, we can see that she described you as a thorn in the side of the Executive – sorry, that you saw the Executive as a thorn in the side and that you knew that –
Mr Robin Swann: But that’s –
Lead 2C: I think that would tend to suggest, Mr Swann, that you did know that there were concerns about your department’s unilateralism at that time?
Mr Robin Swann: I think I referred to it, and honestly, my Lady, I didn’t recall it through – when it was presented to me or when I saw it in the handwritten notes, but obviously there it had irked me at that point, on 31 March, that I did refer to it. I think it was unfair, reading the rest of it, as to the work that we had, actually questioning the fact that the Executive that has been rescheduled numerous times, rather than looking to the strategic direction that was laid out, began questioning and reverting to questions on testing and PPE that we’d actually answered previously.
So there’s, I think, possibly a demonstration of frustration that we’d come with a document, a proposal or a – not a document but setting out where we actually were in health that that was actually how it was received.
Lead 2C: That, for example, the reference to PPE, we know from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland that there were particular issues about the provision of PPE to Northern Ireland, and that there were, I think it’s right, particular shortages in Northern Ireland as regards to PPE. That’s right, isn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: We had challenges, I think as every other part of the United Kingdom had, my Lady, and I know there’s a specific workstream on PPE, but what we found when we went, I suppose as a department, as a nation, I don’t think that – in the market where we used to purchase our PPE, we were at the very end of a very long supply chain ordering what was comparatively small amounts. So that’s why the ability to work at a UK level was important to us as well at that point and around PPE not meaning to get sidetracked here.
Lead 2C: So again it might be thought – well, it wouldn’t be remotely surprising, would it, that your ministerial colleagues might be asking questions and pressing the point about PPE in the meetings.
Mr Robin Swann: No, I don’t think –
Lead 2C: Indeed, they might regard that as their – an essential part of their –
Mr Robin Swann: I think there had been meetings prior to that that is actually covered in regards to where they had been asking questions about PPE, but I think I’ve – reading that email, it’s that frustration in regards that, rather looking at the document that we’d produced, that the questions refer back to issues that I felt at that point we’d already answered or answered elsewhere. It wasn’t that PPE wasn’t an issue, of course it was an issue that exercised us daily in regards to making sure those supplies were there.
Lead 2C: I just want at this stage to just go back over just very broadly what decisions, if any, had actually been made in Northern Ireland.
I think, first of all, it’s right, isn’t it, that in terms of the decisions to – the decision to close schools on 18 March, that that was effectively a decision taken by the UK Government that effectively, as it were, were definitive of the position in Northern Ireland; is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: So, in other words, ministers didn’t have to make a decision about that, it was effectively made for them, wasn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: No. At that point the Executive could have still made a unilateral decision, I think the – my Lady referred to the vote that was taken at that meeting. If that vote had went another way, we would have made a different decision in Northern Ireland.
Lead 2C: That was the vote on 16 March, wasn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And the decision there, as we’ve already seen, was we’ll move when the CMO advises us to, but that was taken over by events two days later; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: By SAGE where the recommendation came for schools to close across the UK.
Lead 2C: Are you suggesting there was a sort of debate and discussion amongst the Executive Committee on 18 March –
Mr Robin Swann: No, but –
Lead 2C: – whether to follow the UK lead?
Mr Robin Swann: No, but there was the opportunity and there was a debate around whether to close schools on 16 March.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: Sorry, I thought – maybe I’m picking you up wrong, I thought you were inferring that we were simply following the UK lead in closing schools and hadn’t made any other decisions or had any other debate round that, whereas actually on the 16th we had and it proved to be one that was quite controversial round that stage.
Lead 2C: Yes, but you were obviously very clearly of the view, weren’t you, on 16 March that schools didn’t need to close?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: That was your position –
Mr Robin Swann: Yes, that was my position –
Lead 2C: And the advice that you give –
Mr Robin Swann: And that was the position that was coming through from SAGE, yes.
Lead 2C: That’s what I’m going to ask you about. That position then changed on 18 March, didn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And that’s really what I’m driving at. That change on 18 March and the closure of schools in Northern Ireland, that was because of the UK Government’s announcement, wasn’t it, that schools would close?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, it was on SAGE advice and the schools were closing across the UK, we took the decision at the Executive – sorry, at the Executive to announce that we’d actually close schools on the 23rd.
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: Not on the 18th so it gave schools time to prepare for –
Lead 2C: Of course, a couple of days.
But I don’t think there had been any sort of proper considered discussion before then about what the ramifications of closing schools would be above and beyond some consideration of the impact on the workforce?
Mr Robin Swann: But also in regards and – I think the CMO had raised in regards to those schools – those children that needed access to free school meals and those other challenges as well and that was the debate we actually had on the 16th in regards to –
Lead 2C: That’s a consideration about the impact of –
Mr Robin Swann: Closing schools, yes.
Lead 2C: – closing schools but, I mean, above and beyond what we see on 16 March there wasn’t any further or more deliberate or considered debate amongst you and your colleagues before the announcement on 18 March, was there?
Mr Robin Swann: Not at the Executive level, no.
Lead 2C: In terms of the decision to lock down, what you’ve said in your witness statement was that you can’t find, I think, any record of you having been advised between 18 March and 23 March about any – whether or not a lockdown, for example, was required in Northern Ireland. Is that correct?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct because at that stage, you know, the COBR meeting on, I think it was the 16th, had discussed a series of NPIs, I think quite extensive NPIs but when I was writing the statement I wasn’t able to find any detail where that decision point was actually reached.
Lead 2C: Again, was that decision effectively one then, it was taken by the UK Government without any consideration?
Mr Robin Swann: It was a UK-wide lockdown, so yes.
Lead 2C: But there had never been prior to that point any consideration or deliberation, had there, by the Executive Committee about whether a lockdown was needed in Northern Ireland and what the ramifications of it would be?
Mr Robin Swann: No, and I don’t think looking at, you know, again in hindsight in regards to the NPI, those non-pharmaceutical interventions of closing down schools, the effect on, you know, economy, shops and all the rest of it, I don’t think that detailed conversation actually had been had at an Executive level because at that point I don’t think anyone envisaged that we were going to the level of lockdown that we’re actually going to see at the national level or for the duration that it was going to be held for.
Lead 2C: And I think it follows from all of that that there was none of the planning or infrastructure in place in Northern Ireland to deal with the lockdown when it came?
Mr Robin Swann: And I think that goes back to – I know we didn’t go back to it – was that interaction at the Executive Office level which talked about Northern Ireland being 18 months behind from a non-health point of view.
Lead 2C: I’m going to come back because I know you’ve said that on a number of occasions, Mr Swann and I think I need to give you the opportunity to explain that but let me do it by way of questions.
Do you consider that those deficiencies or those – or that lack of capability in civil contingencies in Northern Ireland had a material impact on the response to the pandemic from January onwards?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes, and I think that’s the point. No, I don’t think there’s any challenge in regards to that and in regards to that civil contingencies preparedness on the non-health related contingency planning that could have been had should have been done even based on flu pandemic preparedness plans at that point as well.
Lead 2C: When did the penny drop amongst ministers in Northern Ireland that that capability was quite as limited?
Mr Robin Swann: I think we’ve already touched on, I think it was round that, I think it crystallised round that meeting on 10 March and the reactions and the comments from the First Minister and deputy First Minister.
Lead 2C: All right, so is it your evidence that really until – well, let me take this in stages.
Looking back over all of this, is it your evidence that it really wasn’t until 10 March that your ministerial colleagues actually understood just how grave a position Northern Ireland was in, in relation to the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: I can’t speak on their behalf in regards to their personal understanding, what I am reflecting is as health minister where I saw those departmental responses coming so I’m sure there were some ministers who were of a level of concern at that point but what I’m looking at is the departmental response in regards to that and I think it is really around that civil contingencies, that NICCMA approach, around 10 March, where that collectively crystallises.
Lead 2C: You say that you can’t, you know, that that’s a matter for them to account for, but as the minister who is leading the response or whose department is the lead government response to the pandemic, it must surely be obvious to you or you must be able to explain when you think – I’m going to use this phrase again – the penny dropped in Northern Ireland?
Mr Robin Swann: And as –
Lead 2C: About what was required to respond?
Mr Robin Swann: And I can’t speak for each individual minister because they did come with different perspectives as regards to the five-party coalition from the parties they come from, the stances they come from as well, so I’m not sure whether they appreciated the seriousness of the whole way through or the implications of the decisions that were going to have to be taken. So, again, it is up to them, I believe, for them to answer, it’s not up to me to speak as to when they realised that either the response wasn’t being met in their departments or whether at a personal level that they were, became truly aware of what needed to be done or what was being done.
Lead 2C: Can we take it from that, Mr Swann, that when you sat down as a group of ministers on 10 March and were looking at the – this situation that was confronting you, there wasn’t a sense or any kind of, from what you could see, any kind of coherent, muscular cross-government response or understanding about what it would take to respond to the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: I think that’s fair, because that, I think, then becomes reflected in the comments from the First and deputy First Minister.
Lead 2C: That obviously all points to very serious issues about planning, and I just want to ask you about two different aspects of the planning.
We’ve already seen that, from a very early stage, you were aware that the pandemic would more seriously impact upon elderly people or people who had an underlying illness, and it doesn’t take any great leap of imagination, does it, to also understand how non-pharmaceutical interventions might really seriously impact upon the most vulnerable people in society? Do you accept in the weeks that were leading up to the lockdown, or even months, that there wasn’t sufficient attention paid or consideration given to those sorts of impacts and what, for example, a lockdown might actually do to people and their lives?
Mr Robin Swann: I do, and I regret that in regards to that level of preparedness as well, and I think that’s why I think the seriousness, the intensity, my Lady, the duration of that lockdown was not something that had been contemplated or planned for, in regards to those additional supports.
I think parts of government actually moved quickly in regards to that, (inaudible) pay attention to my colleagues in the Department for Communities in regards to how they put certain steps in place as to supporting those people who were being – those people who were even clinically extremely vulnerable or those people who had been locked down as well, and in regards to that they were extremely vulnerable. And also the other steps that were being taken by other departments as well as to how they could actually be supported.
I think that’s when – you know, following that period of intense lockdown that the department actually asked their Patient and Client Council to do that piece of engagement work as to – to see what the implications or the effect of the lockdown had, especially on those people who were shielding in regards to that, and I think that’s why, as Northern Ireland, we actually never went back to using that very technical phrase and that very, I suppose, severe measure of enforcing lockdown.
And within at my own department we worked with Department of Communities to make sure that community pharmacy were in place, to make sure that people were able to get their medicines as well. But it was – I think it was a depth and extent of lockdown that hadn’t been prepared for or planned I think across these islands, never mind just here in Northern Ireland.
Lead 2C: Again just coming back to your department, because you had responsibility for not just medical services in general terms but also the full gamut of social care services as well, so even including things like social work, that, again, a huge amount of that fell within your responsibility for those sorts of issues fell within your department, didn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: It did, yes.
Lead 2C: I suppose, of course, it would require the involvement of other departments as well, because it would require a whole-society response, wouldn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, but also specifically in regards to social work it also involved the change in regulations and legislation –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – as to their effects, so we actually did that piece of work and that engagement as well, although not – it hadn’t been done in preparation for the pandemic but would have been done as part of this work as well in regards to that, I suppose, once the direction of travel had been established, that piece, and there was a large piece of engagement work across stakeholders in regards to that to make sure that fostering could be supported to make sure that children going into care homes could be provided as well, as well as other regimes around that as well, so that piece of work was being undertaken and led by the Chief Social Worker.
Lead 2C: Yes. I mean, we know obviously that things like the amount of contact that children have with social workers, it wasn’t that extra provision was being made, but obviously that provision was being made, I think, so that children didn’t – the regulations that applied were lessened; that’s right, isn’t it?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: So that’s not about protection, that’s about –
Mr Robin Swann: No, but there was also a realisation that we had limited resources especially in regard to social workers. There’s also a piece of work between my department and the Department of Justice as to access between, you know, parents and children as well to make sure that those children that had to travel between two houses were also supported as well, that they weren’t seen in lockdown as being part of that closed bubble and that – you know, a very specific piece of work but a very necessary piece of work.
Lead 2C: Just coming back, then, Mr Swann, to the role of the Executive Committee and your department, your deputy was in charge of such a range of – or had such a range of responsibilities that went to perhaps some of the most core functions of government – for example ensuring the safety of children; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: That it might be thought even more surprising that there seems to have been so little of a cross-departmental or cross-government responsibility until a very late stage in the day in terms of responding to the pandemic.
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t – I don’t disagree with that approach, but I think it’s – no one perceived just how deep or how long the lockdown would actually be or how total it would be across society in regards to that.
So if you’re asking me was the planning done for that level, no, it wasn’t. But I don’t think it was done anywhere else either. I stand to be proven wrong. But in regards to that – and I think it shows the flexibility that we were able to work across departments not having to be instructed by the Executive Office but there was that interaction, my Lady, to make sure that those actions were taken.
Lead 2C: I was going to say, that is something that is actually really different about Northern Ireland, for example, compared to central government, Mr Swann, because we’ve seen that ministers from across government in the United Kingdom were attending COBR from at least the second meeting, there’s a panoply of ministerial responsibilities; do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: I agree, and I say, and I’ve said in my statement, that I would have had no objection with how – other Northern Ireland ministers attending COBR. It wasn’t – I wasn’t in charge of the invite. In hindsight, should I have been standing up and saying “But we need more Northern Ireland ministers there”? And I’m sure my Scottish and Welsh colleagues probably think the same in retrospect, I don’t know if they were being asked or …
Lead 2C: I’m not really focusing on COBR, I’m reflecting on the position in Northern Ireland and why it was distinct. So we can see, and I’m just going to use England or central government as an example, we can see the interconnected response by a number of ministers at the outset, can’t we?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, I can’t speak from experience, it’s not something I’ve –
Lead 2C: All right, well, you can see that they’re attending COBR, can’t you?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Lead 2C: And they’re all being informed at the same time as to what’s going on; yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Lead 2C: And when we come to Northern Ireland, there isn’t anyone, for example, who has the equivalent position of the Prime Minister, do we?
Mr Robin Swann: No.
Lead 2C: There doesn’t appear to have been anyone co-ordinating the response to the pandemic, I mean, well into March; do you agree?
Mr Robin Swann: But I do think that, if you’re asking me: should there should be?
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: Yes. And if you’re asking me who it should have been, I firmly believe that that should have been the role of the Executive Office as that overarching body who co-ordinates. They don’t have the same authority or remit as the Prime Minister but it is about a co-ordinating, I suppose, umbrella organisation as to where they sit.
Lead 2C: I think I just want to check, first of all, whether or not there’s any disagreement or anything controversial about this, but I think you’re accepting that – and we probably need to establish a date when you think this happened by, but right up at least until – later into March? I mean, when would you put the date when there’s actually a whole-government response to Covid-19 in Northern Ireland? When did that happen? Did it happen?
Mr Robin Swann: I think we made moves towards having a co-ordinated response, but I think as has been demonstrated through minutes, through Executive, there was never I think at any time that we could say there was a whole government – there was departments coming together, my Lady, and ministers working together but there was always those who had a different opinion or a different approach as to what it is. There was never that perception, I think – or that possibility at any time where the Executive stood together and spoke as one voice that often on every issue. But I think there was a collective response.
If you’re asking me when – when TEO, when the First Minister and deputy First Minister raised their issues as regards around 10 March, I think it takes until, I suppose, maybe June. Up until that point papers coming to – papers coming to the Executive in regards to the pandemic were health department papers, and I think it’s round about June where FM and dFM take over that responsibility and the options, the proposals or recommendations being made to the Executive actually come as an Executive Office paper.
Lead 2C: All right. I think what you’re saying in your evidence is that shouldn’t have been the case, that ought to have happened at a much earlier point in time; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: From a personal and from a departmental point of view, yes.
Lead 2C: I think again, just thinking about what’s different in Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, in addition to having this lack of government response, we also have the absence, don’t we, of any kind of advisory body to – and I know we’ve touched on this already – advisory body to the Executive Office about the response to the pandemic; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes, (inaudible), yeah.
Lead 2C: It was all contingent upon the CMO attending Executive –
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah, and –
Lead 2C: – Committee meetings –
Mr Robin Swann: But I don’t think we can move on about what’s different from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom or even the Republic of Ireland without noting the challenges that do come being a mandatory five-party coalition, as I said at the early stages of my evidence, coming from the broad spectrum of politics in Northern Ireland, both in regards to constitutional but also social, economic as well.
Lead 2C: Well, Mr Swann, I think the Inquiry understands that, but I think it’s about deepening the understanding of why the response in Northern Ireland may look quite different from other parts of the United Kingdom, having regard to the lack of a whole-government response.
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I don’t think the whole-government response made some of the aspects – the majority of our aspects any different in regard to lockdown, school closures, you know, all those sections I think we were doing the same thing despite from what you term as not having a whole-government response.
So departments were taking certain steps, in certain areas the Executive were making those collective decisions, although maybe not always unanimous, in regards to what needed to be done, but we were taking – we were taking a response in regards to what needed to be done.
Lead 2C: What collective decisions did you take in the first part of the pandemic?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, I think in regards to those decisions especially around March, you know, we were taking decisions – the decision to close schools was actually an Executive decision, it wasn’t a whole-government because not all the parties – or not all the participants actually agreed.
Ms Dobbin: One second. (Pause)
Thank you.
I’m going to move on, Mr Swann, because another important part of your responsibility – I got that wrong.
Lady Hallett: Don’t worry, Ms Dobbin, you’re well into your questions.
Ms Dobbin: We’re going to break now, I think.
Lady Hallett: Is a break now convenient to you?
Ms Dobbin: Yes.
Lady Hallett: I’m afraid we’re not going to be able to finish your evidence before the break, Mr Swann, so I shall return at 3.17 minutes or thereabouts.
(3.02 pm)
(A short break)
(3.17 pm)
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, thank you.
My Lady, I’ve discussed with my learned friends the apportionment of the remaining time, so I’m going to deal with two more very short topics, and then my learned friends will deal with those that are remaining.
Mr Swann, in terms, then, of those two final topics, I think you fairly in your statement reflect in terms of perhaps challenges to the Executive Committee in Northern Ireland that you weren’t helped by officials or politicians across the United Kingdom being understood to have potentially acted not in adherence with the Covid regulations; correct?
Mr Robin Swann: Correct, yes.
Lead 2C: And you’ve also pointed to the fact that that was a problem in both the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom as well; is that right?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s correct, yes.
Lead 2C: May I ask you, please, just about the specific issue of the funeral of Mr Storey and the attendance of the deputy First Minister and two other ministers at that, and ask you the question of whether you considered that presented particular challenges to the ability of the Executive Committee to function?
Mr Robin Swann: I used two examples in my witness statement, my Lady, just to demonstrate that exact point, that it wasn’t the challenges that we received on the aspects of Covid regulations being breached just in London but also from both jurisdictions.
In regards to that time period around the Bobby Storey funeral, it was extremely challenging for the Executive, I think it was extremely challenging for a lot of people in health and social care in regards to what was perceived by many as a blatant breach of Covid regulations. And I do appreciate and I acknowledge Carál Ní Chuilín’s, the former communities minister, apology, during her evidence session at the start of the – and during last week as well.
But what made it particularly challenging from our point of view, from a Health point of view, my Lady, was – and I say in my statement, I think the Executive response – and I know it has been challenged by the Inquiry here today, but I think our Executive response was strongest when the people of Northern Ireland saw that cross-party response. There was cross-party media briefings in regards – I don’t mean this in any way to take away from other media briefings, but those media briefings that portrayed the difficult messages, where it was the First Minister, deputy First Minister and myself, I think portrayed to the people of Northern Ireland a really strong, united front of messaging, no matter what political spectrum or belief people came from.
And I think the really demonstrable outworking of that funeral, and that time as well, those joint briefings ceased in regards to the First and deputy First Minister being able to share that platform. I think we lost part of the confidence of the general public because those people who had been looking either for the rationale or a reason not to follow guidance and restrictions were given them, in regards to that.
But it also put then additional pressures on my department as well, because where we had been doing, you know, joint briefings or alternate briefings, those briefings fell, then, back to the Department of Health and myself and the Chief Medical Officer, Chief Scientific Adviser, to pick up as well.
So from that point on – and it was an outworking of that that the response then was again perceived and portrayed as being a Health response because we didn’t have that demonstrated – you know, that united response that we’d had previously, so that was I think the real – or one of the real outworkings of the aftermath of that funeral was the lack of joint message that we actually saw at that point.
Lead 2C: All right, thank you, Mr Swann.
The other point that I wanted to ask you about, please, if I may, and I’m not going to go back through, because we’ve done this with a number of witnesses, to understand how the pandemic progressed in Northern Ireland through autumn and winter 2020, we’ve explored that with the CSA and the CMO, but obviously we understand that it culminated, so to speak, in that difficult four-day meeting over the course of the four days from 9 November onwards.
First of all, I wanted to ask you your view as to the deployment of a cross-community vote in that context, and whether or not that was something you, as the minister who was proposing the recommendations, agreed with?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, those – I think at the start of the proceedings this morning you read out my involvement in politics in Northern Ireland, and there has been some highs and there has been some lows. I think those four days were the lowest I’ve ever experienced in politics in Northern Ireland in regards to the behaviour, the tenor and how those meetings were actually portrayed and – the point we touched on earlier – in regards to the almost live commentary as to the discussions that were being had, as well, in regards to what decisions were being taken, who was saying what, and almost – I wouldn’t say targeting, as being too strong a word, but where certain proposals were being – coming from during that period in time.
But the deployment of a cross-community vote where – as, my Lady, I think it is a legal position that is and a legal tool that is available to be used in a Northern Ireland Executive meeting following the St Andrews Agreement, so whether it’s legally right and able to use, I question whether it was morally right and able to use at that point in time as well.
I don’t accept it was to prove a finite point at any time in the response, it was done deliberately.
The larger challenge, and I think it has been talked about and all the rest of it, my perception, personal perception of a cross-community vote is to support one community’s rights or identity over another. The fact that I, as a Unionist minister, was bringing forward a recommendation that was then subject to a cross-community vote from another Unionist party, to me, steps outside the remit and rationale as to what that mechanism was actually created for, and intended for.
Lead 2C: And –
Mr Robin Swann: And again – sorry, just going back and tying it in with your previous point, I think during that time as well, because of the ongoings over those four days, the portrayal, the use of the cross-community vote, we lost, again, support of I think a section of Northern Ireland society in regards to how they perceived the behaviour or whether they should continue to respond to and follow guidance and recommendations and restrictions as to how it was actually being played out politically.
Lead 2C: I think that it’s – the counter-perspective to that that has been – that other ministers gave evidence about, and I’m thinking, for example, of Lord Weir, where he suggested that there wasn’t really the space in the meetings to raise the legitimate counterarguments, for example, about the economic impact on Northern Ireland or about the other consequences for Northern Irish society and that the vote became necessary in order to ensure that there could be a proper debate about that.
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t – I think those debates were being had anyway. I don’t think that the deployment of the cross-community vote was the end of the process, it wasn’t to enable the start of a process or a discussion as well, it was actually to close down discussion on recommendations that were being brought forward by myself at that point in time.
And in regards to – to talk about those recommendations or actually to enable discussions at an Executive meeting, it’s during that period, towards the end, where I took, my Lady, the personal decision not to put recommendations into an Executive paper, because I wanted to give the Executive space to have a wider debate as to actually where we currently were in regards to the pandemic in Northern Ireland, because my concern at that point was if that paper had have come forward towards the end of those four days with a specific recommendation that a cross-community vote would simply be deployed again and – we wouldn’t have had the opportunity to actually have that wider conversation or understanding as to where we actually were.
Lead 2C: Two very short points to finish, then, if I may. The Inquiry has obviously seen the number of people who died in the second wave in Northern Ireland was greater than in the first wave. I think the first and perhaps obvious question is whether or not there had been a failure to learn lessons from the first wave and whether that contributed to what happened in the second wave?
Mr Robin Swann: I think the lessons learned from, I think, from a health perspective, were clearly in place and clearly being deployed, I think, coming into that from October really onwards. I think we lost the commitment of the people of Northern Ireland to follow some of the guidance and regulations that we had actually had in place and that were actually being observed in the first wave. Also in the first wave, you know, it’s been talked about that we actually entered lockdown at an earlier point –
Lead 2C: Yes.
Mr Robin Swann: – of the wave and the virus in regards to that, so that’s why that happened, but I think we had lost a lot of the commitment and respect for what we were asking people to do towards the end of that.
Lead 2C: Do you think, then, the fact that Northern Ireland may possibly have been spared the very worst of the pandemic in the first wave may have meant that people in Northern Ireland just had their guard down when it came to the second wave?
Mr Robin Swann: There was also, and sorry, as I say, it’s a culmination, it’s not just about having their guard down but I think people had seen, I think, the behaviours of –
Lady Hallett: So going back to the Storey funeral –
Mr Robin Swann: The impact of the Storey funeral on October and November, I think, maybe allowed people –
Lady Hallett: Probably people driving to test their eyes, that kind of thing.
Mr Robin Swann: I couldn’t possibly comment, my Lady.
Ms Dobbin: My Lady, those are my questions. I’ll hand over to my learned friends, thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Dobbin.
Mr Wilcock.
Questions From Mr Wilcock KC
Mr Wilcock: Mr Swann, I ask you questions on behalf of the Northern Ireland Covid Bereaved Families for Justice. I’ve got five topics I have been given permission to cover.
Topic 1, I think, given your answers this morning, you’ll agree, won’t you, that it was very clear at a very early stage, probably even before Covid reached our shores, that the pandemic we were dealing with in early 2020 would disproportionately affect those who were older or disabled or medically vulnerable?
Mr Robin Swann: I think there was an acceptance that it would be, have a detrimental effect on large parts of society in Northern Ireland but there was also a realisation, I think as we moved through the understanding of the pandemic, that those particular groups that you refer to would be, yes.
Mr Wilcock KC: Disproportionately affected?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Mr Wilcock KC: And are you aware that on Friday the Inquiry heard evidence that on 28 January the UK Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Chris Whitty, told Professor Michael McBride, the Chief Medical Officer to your department, that notwithstanding any scientific uncertainties “we should now assume that asymptomatic transmission may be happening”?
Mr Robin Swann: I think in regards to – and I listened to the CMO’s response to that in regards to asymptomatic transmission in regards to the understanding of that at that point in time, so from a medical point of view I would accept what the Chief Medical Officer gave to the Inquiry at that point.
Mr Wilcock KC: Does it follow that the risk of asymptomatic transmission of Covid was recognised by the Department of Health, your department, as a concern since the Chief Medical Officer to the department received that message?
Mr Robin Swann: I think, or – and again, not to speak on behalf of what the Chief Medical Officer’s response was, but looking back in regards to papers and correspondence, I think the acceptance of asymptomatic transmission came about May of 2020.
Mr Wilcock KC: Notwithstanding what Professor McBride had been told in January?
Mr Robin Swann: I think in regards to that conversation the medical acceptance of asymptomatic transmission became, I suppose, accepted about May of 2020, and that’s my understanding.
Mr Wilcock KC: So the communication isn’t about the medical acceptance or the medical certainty or the scientific certainty, it’s about the assumption that measures should be proceeded on the assumption that it may be happening?
Mr Robin Swann: Well, in regards to the advice and guidance that I was given at that point in time, it wasn’t until, as I say, May 2020 in regards that it was accepted.
Mr Wilcock KC: In the light of that answer, can we have INQ000065689 on screen. This is a document that we have already looked at in a different context today.
Can we go to page 6, please, and can you see that there is there an entry … sorry, my eyesight’s failing me.
(Pause)
Mr Wilcock KC: Just there:
“DoH: Can be tested if they have symptoms.
“Shared with [COBR], share with colleagues.
“I will do everything to protect my workers.”
Mr Wilcock KC: Do you remember giving that reply at that meeting?
Mr Robin Swann: Sorry, I don’t remember giving that reply but I think, as I said to you in earlier statements, I wasn’t aware of this transcript being taken, whether it’s verbatim, but if it’s there I do –
Mr Wilcock KC: You accept it?
Mr Robin Swann: And it would be in response to the point made by the deputy First Minister where she asks: are we testing healthcare workers?
Mr Wilcock KC: Do you agree that by not following Professor Whitty’s advice to assume asymptomatic transmission was happening, and by limiting the testing at that stage only to symptomatic healthcare workers, you were unfortunately not, to use the phrase in that minute, actually doing everything to protect your workers?
Mr Robin Swann: And I think it goes back to the point of – the date of that meeting in regards to the availability of testing. If I had the ability of the accessibility of testing that we had towards the end of 2020, when lateral flow devices were actually common and in use and in practice, I would really have loved to have been able to distribute and make testing more available than currently the limited availability we had at that point in time.
Mr Wilcock KC: Either way, the effect was that not – the testing that was required wasn’t being done, was it?
Mr Robin Swann: But I think in response to that, the testing that was available or the number of tests that were available wasn’t, and proportionate as to what I would have liked to have done.
Mr Wilcock KC: Topic 2. This morning you referred to high-level guidance that was sent out to care homes in, you thought, towards the end of February. I think you’ve been shown over lunchtime some guidance that was sent to care homes in the middle of March. Can I just check, first of all, was that the guidance you were referring to when you spoke this morning?
Mr Robin Swann: No, actually I did check. On 27 February guidance for social and community care in residential settings was sent out. It was based on what was known about the virus at that point in time and the guidance provided advice on how to help prevent spread, what to do if someone was suspected of confirmed Covid-19, individuals who had been travelling, actions to take and staff coming – if staff come into contact with someone who was self-isolating in regards to that.
My Lady, if that hasn’t been provided to the Inquiry I will check with my team and make sure that it has because that’s the advice and the update that I was given.
Mr Wilcock KC: I think that’s a long way of saying: no, that wasn’t what I looked at over lunchtime.
Mr Robin Swann: Oh, no, sorry –
Mr Wilcock KC: Can you kindly confine yourself to the question. I know it’s difficult because you have got a lot to say, but we haven’t got a lot of time –
Mr Robin Swann: No, and I suppose, in reflection to the question you actually asked was of what – the document that I was shared with on 17 March was what I was referring to on 27 February, and I’ll be clear: no, those were two different documents.
Mr Wilcock KC: Thank you.
Can I ask you then about the document you looked at at lunchtime, which is the document dated the middle of March. I can take it to you if you wish, but it’s right, isn’t it, that just as you’d said the day before, that document states that:
“Where a resident of a care home is showing symptoms of Covid-19, steps should [and I emphasise “should”] be taken to minimise the risk of transmission through safe working procedures.”
Do you remember that phrase in that document?
Mr Robin Swann: I’ve since seen that document and that’s the phrase that’s in it, yes.
Mr Wilcock KC: Thank you.
Bearing in mind the use of the word “should” in the guidance, can we have page 2 of INQ000397066 on screen.
This should be a letter written to you, Mr Pengelly, Professor McBride and others, on 23 March, the day before lockdown was announced, by a number of the largest providers of home care in Northern Ireland.
Can you see in the first line of that letter that they explain that they are writing to you to “express [their] dissatisfaction” at the “insufficient leadership and action” from your department and its associated trusts in relation to the Covid-19 challenge?
Mr Robin Swann: That’s what the letter states, yes.
Mr Wilcock KC: Now, if we go to the first bullet point of their criticisms, you can see, can’t you, that they assert that homecare workers had been asked to deliver care to symptomatic clients – [Technical issue - Inquiry video feed interrupted]
Mr Robin Swann: – but in regards to setting up, I think it was part of the earlier evidence in regards to those lines of supply, especially of PPE, through the independent care home providers to our trusts as well as establishing that single point of contact.
Mr Wilcock KC: The first bullet point asserts that:
“Homecare Workers are continually overlooked in policy guidance with little or no regard to the risk of contamination from delivering personal care.”
Do you agree that simply telling care homes in your guidance that where a resident is showing symptoms of Covid-19 steps should be taken to minimise the risk, failed to curtail the risk of contamination from delivering personal care to people you knew to be medically vulnerable?
Mr Robin Swann: And I think it’s taking those, I suppose, those two points in unison, and I think we had – we were taking steps as to the supply of PPE. I also made it a priority not just in the supply of PPE but also testing, but also vaccines, vaccine deployment in regards to care home at that point in time it was challenging across the whole of health and social care.
As I said earlier in my deliberations to the Inquiry, when I came into office in January I perceived our domiciliary care, our social work, to be the Cinderella service because I do think they have been undervalued and under-recognised up until that point, and I think they really became the focus of attention during Covid in regards to actually the support, the delivery they were giving to the most vulnerable in our society, and it’s how we make sure and how we made sure that we support them.
Mr Wilcock KC: I think to be fair to you, when you replied to that letter you said that you accepted you had – the department, not you personally – the department had more to do?
Mr Robin Swann: Yeah.
Mr Wilcock KC: But the letter does go on to set out a number of other criticisms, some of which are described as incredible, before ending with the words:
“… we need leadership and actions which will allow our teams to slow the [progression] of the virus, [and] protect the most vulnerable [of] our people.”
Even allowing for the unique difficulties you and your department were working under, was the “dissatisfaction and frustration at the insufficient leadership and action from the Department [of Health]” expressed in this letter understandable?
Mr Robin Swann: I do think – and that that frustration that was coming from independent care home providers was being also expressed from different parts of our health and social care system, in regards from our nurses, our hospital provision as well, so unfortunately it wasn’t unique solely to health or social care sector.
Mr Wilcock KC: Can we have a look now at INQ000120717, and this time I’d like to look at paragraph 7, which is another aspect of the guidance that was issued in March, 17 March.
Can you see in paragraph 7 that this states that:
“Although there is no blanket ban on visits to nursing and residential homes at this stage, restrictions on visits are advised.”
Now, two weeks ago the Inquiry heard evidence from one of my clients, Marion Reynolds, that, as she put it in her statement, the stark reality for many of our members was that they could “maintain little or no contact with vulnerable persons who were in hospital care settings” from 2020 and for the remainder of the year, including after the – long after Care Partner guidance, which should have enabled access to residents, was issued in autumn 2020.
Could you tell us what steps your department took to ensure that the guidance enabling access to loved ones in residential or hospital settings was being disseminated and applied properly?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to the dissemination especially to resident homes that was being done through RQIA in regards to – at the start, because they had the direct contact with all the homes as well, so that’s the steps that we were taking.
The introduction of Care Partners was a frustration for me in regards to the delivery. It wasn’t as uniform as we wanted it to be and there was also challenges from, I think, some providers who were being over – not over-precautious but were being precautious in the delivery of that in regards to how it could be utilised and should be utilised.
So, again – and I’m sure you’ve investigated in regards to I think it’s towards the October/November of 2020 where I actually put additional monies into the support of care homes so they could deliver Care Partner arrangements as well, because I think it’s crucially important, and it was personal for me as well, that we shouldn’t just look at care homes as facilities, they were the residents’ homes, they were places that they perceived as being safety and supportive as well but during the Covid pandemic it had become increasingly difficult in some aspects to be able to support them and keep them safe.
Mr Wilcock KC: Do you accept Marion Reynolds’ criticism that, sadly, whatever was done wasn’t enough –
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Mr Wilcock KC: – to keep people informed?
Mr Robin Swann: I do in regards to those communications structures, especially going through, you know, RQIA and through the trust as well in those early days. I’ve – and in regards – and, my Lady, I don’t mean this as a defence of those actions then, but the steps that have been taken in regards to how, before leaving office, I established a social care collaborative forum working out from I think the learnings of this, but at this point in time there was a weakness.
Mr Wilcock KC: Topic 4, can we have INQ000023229 on screen, please.
If we look at the second and third paragraphs of that document, we will see that you wrote to the First and deputy Ministers on 29 March that:
“… despite the pace at which this issue has evolved, I feel [that] our overall response thus far has been effective …”
Will you accept from me that somewhere between 20 and 30% of deaths involving Covid in Northern Ireland during the pandemic between 2020 and 2022 took place in care homes or residential settings?
Mr Robin Swann: And I think that has been demonstrated through ONS and NISRA figures as well, unfortunately.
Mr Wilcock KC: Of course those figures don’t reflect the deaths of people who lived at home and who were receiving support from the care sector but who went home and died at home.
Do these statistics not reveal that, rather than being “effective”, the government response in Northern Ireland was the opposite, starkly ineffective, in protecting those in care homes?
Mr Robin Swann: I think, and as I’ve said – I say that we could have done more. We – you know, in regards to the supply and the support of how we actually affected not just working – those in care homes but those working in care homes and those providing care, especially in domiciliary care, and those people working and supporting vulnerable people within their own homes as well.
Mr Wilcock KC: So is the answer yes?
Mr Robin Swann: Yes.
Mr Wilcock KC: Finally, you told us this morning that your position as Minister of Health was “lonely and challenging at times”, and given some of the evidence we’ve heard about political relationships at times during the response to the pandemic, we can perhaps understand what you mean.
In that context, can we look at INQ000220391, please.
We understand that this is an email dated 17 December between two employees of the British Geriatric Society in which the last paragraph but two, you were described as describing your weekly meetings with Matt Hancock and the other health ministers in Wales and Scotland as “group therapy”.
Does the fact that you regarded even a meeting with Mr Hancock as therapy give us some insight into the extent of the political, administrative and policy stresses you were under at this time?
Mr Robin Swann: I don’t think too much should be read – and again, it’s not – it’s not – it’s not – it’s not an email that I written or had part of, but I will say at that point in time that the conversations of – you know, of four health ministers at that point, taking aside what we know now in regards to certain individuals, was actually quite – it was engaging but it was also one of those points which I actually think showed a political maturity, especially at a Health level.
I as an Ulster Unionist health minister from Northern Ireland was able to interact on the same topics, the same issues, have the same discussion with Matt Hancock, Tory minister from London, Vaughan Gething, Labour and Co-operative Welsh health minister, and Jeane Freeman, the Scottish National Party health minister from Scotland, so there was a level of engagement that we were able to have at those meetings that wasn’t available to, I would say, any of the four of us elsewhere.
Mr Wilcock KC: The political maturity that you just described didn’t happen in Northern Ireland during the political response to the pandemic, did it?
Mr Robin Swann: In regards to, I think – and it’s part of, my Lady, I think, some of the challenges in Northern Ireland, that ability to develop personal relationships in politics in Northern Ireland, I don’t think is there to the same extent, my Lady, as it would have been in the past, where we saw politicians from Northern Ireland coming up through council chambers together, working cross-community together, working on cross-community projects together, whereas now I think there’s a sad reflection that Northern Ireland politics, rather than becoming more collegiate, has actually become more insular.
Mr Wilcock: Mr Swann, thank you very much.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Mr Wilcock.
Ms Davies, do you have a question?
Questions From Ms Davies
Ms Davies: My Lady, thank you, just one.
Mr Swann, I ask a question on behalf of Disability Action.
You accepted earlier in your evidence today that you regretted the lack of sufficient attention or consideration in planning for the pandemic response given to the impacts of NPIs on the most vulnerable people in society.
You also referred in your January 2024 statement to the examples of your department’s efforts to engage with groups disproportionately impacted by Covid-19. This included encouraging people to take part in a June 2020 survey to understand the impact of shielding on individuals and to inform next steps. You referred to the survey as the start of a constant conversation to ensure that the voices of those impacted by shielding is heard.
On 25 November 2021 Disability Action wrote to you
to request an urgent meeting to address the deficit
within the Department of Health in planning associated
with Covid-19, including the Covid-19 recovery plan, due
to concerns about the disproportionate number of
disabled people who had died from Covid-19, as well as
concerns about access to essential health and social
care.
You responded on 13 December 2021. You acknowledged
the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on disabled
people, and the immediate work that needed to be done,
but you said that you didn’t find that a meeting with
Disability Action would be helpful at that juncture.
Didn’t refusing an urgent meeting requested by
Disability Action not undermine any commitment by your
department to meaningful engagement and that constant
conversation with impacted groups?
Mr Robin Swann: My Lady, I don’t know. I have seen the letter. It’s
one, on reflection, where I could have answered
differently at that time in regards to those engagements
that I had, those engagements that I was having.
I’m not sure in regards to the further engagement
that Disability Action actually had with leading
officials within my department based on that. That
response would have been part of a process of engagement and I can’t comment in regards to what other further engagements Disability Action actually had with departmental officials in that commitment.
But there’s no – I can assure there’s no slight or offence meant in that response and I hope that you can take that back in regards to Disability Action and who you represent.
Ms Davies: Can I take that that you do accept that a meeting as requested would have been helpful to both Disability Action and also informing the next steps and processes being planned by your department?
Mr Robin Swann: On reflection at this point in time, yes.
Ms Davies: Thank you.
Lady Hallett: Thank you, Ms Davies.
Mr Swann, those are all the questions we have for you.
I think I need to explain the YouTube streaming at the moment isn’t running, but I’m going to carry on because I think I’m fulfilling my duty to be accessible because the webinar and transcript are still being broadcast.
But that completes your evidence for the day.
I should have said this to Sir Michael McBride, so I don’t know if he’s following or was trying to follow until we had the technical hitch, could you relay to him
too, whatever findings I make, Mr Swann, both you and
Sir Michael obviously had a huge burden placed upon you,
and you obviously worked enormously hard, both of you,
so thank you very much for all that you tried to do for
the people of Northern Ireland then, as I say, whatever
findings I may make.
And thank you for all the help that you have
provided. I know we make huge demands, especially on
a serving minister, so thank you very much.
The Witness: My Lady, thank you.
(The witness withdrew)
Lady Hallett: Now I think we’ve got to have two witnesses
to come in. I’m not going to rise, we’re going to carry
on.
(Pause)
Lady Hallett: I’m sorry if we’ve kept you waiting a long time.
Professor Ann-Marie Gray
PROFESSOR ANN-MARIE GRAY (sworn).
Professor Karl O’Connor
PROFESSOR KARL O’CONNOR (sworn).
Questions From Lead Counsel to the Inquiry for Module 2C
Ms Dobbin: Can I ask you each, please, to give your full
name to the Inquiry.
Professor Gray: Professor Ann-Marie Gray.
Professor O’Connor: Professor Karl O’Connor.
Ms Dobbin: I’m going to try my very best to manage this,
and I’ll try and direct my questions to which of you I think is probably the best placed to answer, but if I direct it to the wrong person, please let me know.
Lady Hallett: Please don’t worry, I will take into account your written reports, so if there’s something you wanted to say afterwards you think about on the bus on the way home, don’t worry, I will be bearing it in mind.
Ms Dobbin: To start, please, with your report, I think that you have it in front of you, and that both of you signed that report on 20 April 2024; yes?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: I think that you have also signed an expert declaration in respect of that report, haven’t you?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: I won’t go through all of those preliminaries with you, I am going to try, if I may, to just cut through this, but obviously as part of your expert duties you’re also under a duty to draw to the attention of the Chair if you’ve heard anything, for example, that undermines the opinion that you’ve provided here. Okay?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: I think as well if I can just take you through your respective expertise, I’m going to try and do this at a bit of a pace, but Professor Gray, I think you have a doctorate in the development of health services from the Ulster University; is that correct?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: You’re a professor of social policy at the School of Applied Social and Policy Sciences at Ulster University as well.
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: You have a special interest in terms of your research in health and social care, devolution and social policy, and gender and social policy; correct?
Professor Gray: That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: You’ve also written two books, I think, which touch on social policy and welfare as well; is that correct?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: I know that you’ve published a number of articles in journals, those are set out in the report as well. You were a member of the social work and social policy panel in 2022 as well. Is that within Northern Ireland?
Professor Gray: No, that’s the UK research excellence framework panel.
Ms Dobbin: I’m grateful. You’re also the chair of the UK Social Policy Association as well.
Professor Gray: That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: And the chair of Youth Action in Northern Ireland also, and you teach on policy in government as well and on collaborative policymaking in health and social care as well. Yes?
Professor Gray: Correct, yes.
Ms Dobbin: Professor O’Connor, I think it’s right you have a doctorate from the University of Exeter and in fact it was awarded the Hutton prize for excellence in terms of improving standards of governance; is that correct?
Professor O’Connor: Yes, that’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: You’re a professor of public administration and public policy as well; is that right?
Professor O’Connor: That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: At Ulster University also. And you’re the research director for social work and social policy at that university also; yes?
Professor O’Connor: That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: And you were the founding director of the Centre for Public Administration at the university as well; yes?
Professor O’Connor: That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: And you have a special interest in the role of the civil servant in conflicted societies as well; is that also right?
Professor O’Connor: That’s correct.
Ms Dobbin: As well as that you remain, I think, the subject lead for public administration at Ulster University –
Professor O’Connor: Correct.
Ms Dobbin: – and you have that, that’s one of your current responsibilities; yes?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: Now, I think between both of you, you probably cover the concept of good governance, would that be an accurate way to put your report?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: What I want to do is to touch upon perhaps some of the most significant issues that you touch upon in your report and perhaps to ask you whether or not any of the evidence that you have heard or seen or read in the course of the Inquiry has changed any of your opinions.
Now, first of all, I think I need to establish that I think you have watched a number of the witnesses give evidence.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: Or read the transcripts.
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: Is that right?
Professor O’Connor: Not all of them.
Ms Dobbin: Not all of them. Can I just check, then, to be clear, whether or not between you, you have read or seen, for example, the evidence given by most of the senior civil servants?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: All right, and have you heard the evidence given, for example, by the Chief Medical Officer?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: And the Chief Scientific Adviser as well?
Professor Gray: Yes.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: Thank you.
So one of the issues that’s perhaps to the fore in your report, is the concept of collective government responsibility, and what you said at paragraph 27 of your report, I won’t take you to it unless we need to, is that an attempt to encourage a convention of collective responsibility has been met with limited success in Northern Ireland.
I think it’s right that it follows from your report that because there is no government of the day in Northern Ireland, that’s why there isn’t a concept of collective responsibility; correct?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: But that nonetheless some of the principles that underpin it could nonetheless be applied in Northern Ireland; is that right?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: So turning, first of all, to one aspect of collective responsibility is the principle of the confidentiality of collective discussions on the part of ministers.
In terms of any evidence you’ve heard, has your opinion advanced in any way in your report about that as a concept in Northern Ireland? Or do you have concerns, perhaps that might be a better way to put it, in terms of what you’ve heard in the course of this Inquiry about the concept of confidentiality?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Professor Gray: Go ahead.
Professor O’Connor: We were – well, I’ll speak for myself and you can speak for you.
I was disappointed to see the lack of confidentiality in the – and respect for confidentiality in that room, to allow ministers to have an open and frank discussion about serious policy consequences. The way Cabinet should work in our system, the Westminster system and our version thereof, is that we expect ministers from a broad background, broad array of backgrounds, to be able to discuss openly and frankly the possibilities and the different recommendations that have been put to them by their senior civil servants, and if we are to have confidence in our governance system, that discussion needs to take place at that table, not in pre-meetings beforehand, not in – and certainly not with a running commentary to the media while these conversations are happening.
So I was disappointed, but not altogether surprised.
Ms Dobbin: All right. Well, it may seem like an obvious question, but detrimental to good governance in Northern Ireland that that should have been a feature of –
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: – collective discussions throughout the pandemic?
Professor O’Connor: Without a shadow of a doubt, yes.
Ms Dobbin: I can see you agreeing.
Professor Gray: I completely agree, but also detrimental in terms of the public perception and how those, that lack of confidentiality presented to the public, perhaps, a picture of a dysfunctional Executive, and the harm that that may have created in terms of the public trust in the messages being communicated, both by individual members of the Executive but by the Executive as a whole as well.
Ms Dobbin: All right.
Another part of your report that you have linked to there not being a formal concept of collective responsibility is a possible tendency on the part of departments to act in an autonomised or compartmentalised way and, again, has any of the evidence that you’ve heard in the Inquiry advanced the opinions that you express in your report about that, or again, added to concerns that you might have about how departments operate in Northern Ireland?
Professor O’Connor: Yes, so it is unfortunate, but there are good reasons for the Good Friday Agreement being set up as it was, but each of our departments are a separate legal entity, as you’ve heard on numerous occasions. This can lead to siloing, more so than in Westminster and other governments, and one of our frustrations was that the arrangements for interdepartmental working in times of a crisis were not initiated sooner, because that could have helped bring information – collate information from across various different departments at a mid-level, mid civil servant level, and senior civil servant level, to allow for learning to happen across departments before the pandemic actually took hold in Northern Ireland.
Lady Hallett: Before we go to, or Ms Dobbin takes you to the triggering of NICCMA arrangements, can I just take you back to, because of the particular circumstances in Northern Ireland, you have the separate departments, separate ministers, separate Civil Service, which I confess came as a surprise to me when I started these hearings. I can see, just about, why you might have separate ministers who are autonomous in their departments because of the particular circumstances in Northern Ireland. What I still find hard to follow is having separate Civil Service departments, and no overall … I still find that difficult to get.
Professor O’Connor: It is difficult, but the permanent secretary is responsible to the minister, so if the ministers don’t have collective responsibility it would be very difficult for the permanent secretaries to respond to the Executive as a whole.
Now, they are responsible to the Assembly as a whole, through …
Lady Hallett: But if you had, as we have in England, you had a, what they call the Home Civil Service, the permanent secretaries could be responsible to the chief of the – head of the Civil Service, surely?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Lady Hallett: I appreciate that’s not the case here, but I still can’t – I can see how politicians might be separate, I can’t work out why the Civil Service has to.
Professor O’Connor: Traditionally the head of the – it’s different now, but traditionally the head of the Civil Service was also the permanent secretary for the Executive Office, which was under the First and deputy First Minister, which may have meant that it would be difficult for a permanent secretary from a department that was not part of the two main parties to accept direction from a head of the Civil Service.
Lady Hallett: Anyway, we are where we are, and the only answer – and this is where I interrupted – is to ensure that you trigger the cross-government department working in a time of emergency. That’s the only answer.
Sorry I interrupted.
Ms Dobbin: No, I …
Professor Gray, did you have anything to add on that?
Professor Gray: Very little, except to say that unfortunately I think the lack of co-operation between government departments really during this pandemic really reinforced a history of an inability really to co-operate effectively, particularly on substantive issues of social policy and issues where there was likely to be some ideological disagreement, and I think that came to pass during the pandemic as well, with regard to issues such as the easing of restrictions, for example.
Ms Dobbin: All right.
Just coming back, if I may, to the not standing up of the civil contingencies arrangements for some time, I think the point that has been made on behalf of some civil servants was that there may not have been enough people –
Professor O’Connor: Yeah.
Ms Dobbin: – in order to do that, so that’s what’s been said, but just putting that to one side, there appears to have only been one civil contingencies meeting of officials which took place on 20 February, I think until about 18 March, and I think there was one meeting of ministers on 12 March.
Does it surprise you that there should have been no other meetings, if it’s right, apart from those?
Professor O’Connor: I’m sure there would have been informal meetings and I know that, from the evidence that was presented here, that civil servants had been taking this very seriously before 17 March, but – and I know only too well that our Civil Service has been understaffed for many, many years, so I do accept that point. However, given what we knew as February progressed was happening in the rest of the world, and given how late the virus came to Northern Ireland, I think – and this is with the benefit of hindsight – that it would have been prudent to step up those civil contingencies arrangements much earlier. While it would have taken people away from other very important tasks, bear in mind at this time our Civil Service has already been pared down, so is only working on what it is statutorily required to do, due to underinvestment for a number of years. So to take – to pull a resource from somewhere is going to mean that we are going to stop doing something, and it’s very difficult to stop doing something that you’re more than likely obliged to do by law.
So this redeployment of staff wouldn’t have been an easy decision, and where would the staff have come from? Now, if we were able to do it for preparing for EU exit, surely we would have been able to do it in preparation for a pandemic.
Ms Dobbin: So is your point, Professor O’Connor, that because there had been – those preparations had in fact been arranged for, or in the event of a no-deal Brexit, and I think that that included the creation of this special room that we heard about from Minister Swann, and that very many people, for example, had been trained, that the question you’re posing is the one you’ve just said, if you can in fact do all of that, what happened when it came to the pandemic? Why is there not an equivalent response? Is that effectively what you’re saying?
Professor O’Connor: I agree.
Ms Dobbin: All right.
Professor Gray, do you have anything to add on that?
We’ve also seen, perhaps, in the course of the Inquiry about the very important role that was played by the Chief Medical Officer, and perhaps the lack of other advisory structures that were available in Northern Ireland as well, do you think that ought to be a cause for concern? So in other words the fact that there isn’t perhaps a structural response but rather a response to individuals to these circumstances?
Professor Gray: If I could go first.
It does certainly seem, at least in the early days of the pandemic, that there was a lot of responsibility, a lot of weight on the Chief Medical Officer, and we have heard from the CSA’s evidence, for example, and other evidence, that he was returning to work after some time as well. I think one thing to note is that our Chief Medical Officer has a very wide range of responsibilities, you know, comparable, for example, or compared, for example, to the Chief Medical Officer in England. Now, the role, the responsibilities, the accountability of chief medical officers does vary quite considerably between countries, but if we stick to within the UK, then the Chief Medical Officer for England, Sir Chris Whitty, is the UK Government Chief Medical Officer, he is not a Department of Health Chief Medical Officer in the way that Sir Michael McBride is in Northern Ireland, for example.
And when we look at Sir Michael’s – the range of responsibilities he carried, the range of policy and strategic responsibilities, and alongside that then responsibility as an independent public health adviser, and as a – the head professional for public health responsible for communicating messages to the public as well, I think it does raise questions about the weight of responsibility being placed on that individual within the Department of Health.
Ms Dobbin: Just in terms of, you said about the CMO providing independent advice, but I think it’s been established that he is in fact, he’s not just an adviser to the Department of Health but is also part of the management –
Professor Gray: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: – of the Department of Health as well. Again, ought that to be a cause for concern, the fact that there isn’t, as it were, independent advice across government in Northern Ireland?
Professor Gray: I think I would say that there are other countries where that is also the case, where a Chief Medical Officer would have those kind of dual responsibilities. However, it is again, you know, more unusual, if we compare Northern Ireland to the situation in England, and I do think that in the context of a pandemic, whenever things are moving quite rapidly, whenever there’s new information emerging, some of that is going to be potentially controversial within government, that it does raise questions about the complexity of that role then in trying to disentangle one set of responsibilities from another, and being able to give or feeling able to give entirely independent advice when you also carry policy responsibilities.
Now, I’m not saying that the Chief Medical Officer did not have the ability to do that, what I’m saying is that it would be quite a challenging thing to do, I think, in those circumstances.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: It might be thought, and the deputy First Minister and the First Minister have yet to give evidence, that the response to the pandemic was seen almost entirely through the lens of a health response, and possibly as opposed to as a whole-government response, and I wonder from the evidence that you’ve seen and heard whether or not you have an opinion on whether the evidence potentially points towards that.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Professor Gray: I think it does, certainly in the early phases of the pandemic it certainly does, it looks like an unusually long delay in Northern Ireland in this pandemic being accepted as something which has to have a whole-system or a whole-government response.
Ms Dobbin: Professor O’Connor, I can see that you’re nodding.
Professor O’Connor: Yes, it’s a cross-cutting issue across government, while health was the lead department, the clue’s in the title there, the “lead” department, they’re not the sole department, and they should at one point have been leading the response, but it is a cross-cutting issue that was across all departments and it required a response from every single department.
Ms Dobbin: Again, do you think that, is that something do you think that ought to have been more obvious at an earlier point in the pandemic?
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Ms Dobbin: Just perhaps moving on, we haven’t actually heard very much about any other structures being involved in the response to the pandemic, but we know that there was the Civil Contingencies Group that after 18 March did start to meet, but wasn’t a decision-making group, and that most of the decisions were taken by the Executive Committee. Again, in terms of your expertise in governance, did you have any other concerns about the way civil contingencies arrangements were configured, or the sort of structural response once they were actually stood up?
Professor O’Connor: My understanding was, and correct me if I’m wrong, the CCG M for ministers and the Executive Committee were one and the same.
Ms Dobbin: They became one and the same, yes.
Professor O’Connor: So I would … the system as designed could potentially have worked quite well, where departmental operation centres –
Ms Dobbin: Yes.
Professor O’Connor: – would have fed information to a hub, based or responsible to the head of the Civil Service, that hub would have collated that information and presented it in an accessible format for permanent secretaries to communicate to ministers, for ministers to have an open discussion with all of the knowledge from across the departments in front of them. That sounds very simple, but in practice it’s a lot more difficult. But it all started from what we have read beforehand that the hub found it difficult to get information out of the departments, they had no line management responsibilities of people working in the departments, so they could not command people – not that we should ever command people, but that we should entice people to give us information so that it can be collated effectively and presented effectively to permanent secretaries and then to ministers in a collated format.
For me, in the midst of a pandemic, that can put a structural order on decision-making so that a number of different eventualities are taken into account. It’s not about: this works for health so let’s run with it. What are the implications for communities? What are the implications for the disadvantaged, the disabled, the elderly, the young people? Everyone has an opportunity around the Cabinet table or the Executive table to contribute.
Ms Dobbin: In the evidence that you’ve seen or what you’ve heard and what you’ve read, have you been able to locate anywhere what the centralising co-ordinating part of the response to the pandemic was, or who took on that role, if anyone?
Professor O’Connor: I’ll go first, and then you can …
Professor Gray: Yes.
Professor O’Connor: There was obviously a clear frustration
among our very, very experienced civil servants at the
outset of the pandemic that this was not being taken
seriously politically. I think that’s what caused –
and this is my own assumption – that’s what caused them
to work around the normal structures, which is what we
always do in Northern Ireland, we never work through the
normal structures, whenever there’s a difficult issue,
we try and work around them. But as we work around
them, because we’re a small society, different lobbying
groups and action groups would be brought to the table
to discuss and input into the process. Given that this
was a fast-moving pandemic response, when civil servants
try to work around the blockages, there isn’t the
opportunity for – there may not be the opportunity for
these groups to input into that process.
So a long-winded answer to your question, I think in
the early days of the pandemic I think it was a very
strong Civil Service response and a very clear
frustration on the part of the Civil Service that there
was a lack of political direction at that time.
As the pandemic progressed, and we move into the
autumn, we see growing political dominance in the
process, which is usually to be welcomed, it is
a democracy, after all, and what we’re expecting to see is with this political dominance a clearer instruction to civil servants, and that’s what civil servants crave, they want direction from their ministers and from government. They were very frustrated at the outset that they didn’t have that clear direction from government. In what we call the second phase of the pandemic or in the autumn of the pandemic, while there was more political influence, that still didn’t lead to what we would call good government or clear direction.
Ms Dobbin: Professor Gray, sorry, do you have –
Professor Gray: No, just briefly to concur with that and to say I think we would have expected the lead to have been taken in the early stages by the Department of Health, you know, it was identified as a global health pandemic. What we might then have expected to see was a more co-ordinated response as the realisation struck that it wasn’t going to be short term, that it was going to involve education, it was going to involve, you know, issues around children’s services, issues around people’s disability, domestic abuse and so on, and we didn’t see that scaling-up of a co-ordinated response for quite some time, and then when it did happen we see the political tensions creeping in which made it difficult then for an efficient response to be activated at times.
Ms Dobbin: Okay.
I’m going to move on to a different topic to ask you about, this is a very specific topic, to ask you about the memorandum of understanding that was signed with, well, I think we’re unclear it was signed, because we have an unsigned copy, but we understand it was concluded and agreed between the respective, I think, departments of health, and I think the CMO in fact said that he had signed it.
Again, just to ask you about that, the idea that a memorandum would be signed between officials as opposed to perhaps respective political leaders or permanent secretaries; is that a surprise, or again is that an inevitable consequence of the political position?
Professor Gray: Potentially both, I think, at that level of what was attempting to be agreed at this time, one might have expected to have seen political input. So for that memorandum of understanding to have been signed by officials, if that was the case, by the chief medical officers, it potentially raises issues of political commitment to the memorandum of understanding in the first place, or to a – or maybe a reflection of historical collaboration as well, you know, it’s one thing to step up collaboration in an emergency if there has been fundamentally good and sustained working relationships and processes in place, it’s quite another and challenging thing to do that if that hasn’t been the case, and I think, you know, witnesses have previously spoken and written in evidence about the areas where there has been, you know, really quite successful North/South collaboration around cancer services, children’s heart surgery and so on, but I wouldn’t say it has been the case on a day-to-day basis that officials, you know, have had that relationship or politicians in the areas of health have had that relationship.
Ms Dobbin: So, I mean, setting aside political leadership, would you have expected perhaps even the sort of MoU might have been signed by the Executive Office with a counterpart in the Republic of Ireland?
Professor O’Connor: Certainly.
Ms Dobbin: Okay.
My Lady, those were all of the questions that I was going to ask. Have you any questions?
Lady Hallett: No, I haven’t, thank you.
Questions From the Chair
Lady Hallett: Just one question: going back to collective responsibility – sorry, it’s a long time since I did constitutional law, so forgive me – how do you have collective responsibility when you have a coalition of five diametrically opposed political parties?
Professor Gray: We don’t have collective responsibility.
Lady Hallett: No, you don’t.
Professor Gray: No, we don’t, no.
Lady Hallett: Ms Dobbin went from collective responsibility to confidentiality. I think they’re two different concepts.
Professor Gray: Yes.
Professor O’Connor: Yes.
Professor Gray: Yes.
Lady Hallett: So is basically collective responsibility impossible if you have this kind of coalition?
Professor O’Connor: With difficulty. In Westminster, if you had the SNP, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Tory party governing the response – the Conservative Party, governing the response to the pandemic and you expected Cabinet collective responsibility, it might be difficult.
Professor Gray: And we don’t – constitutionally, the concept doesn’t apply in Northern Ireland, because it’s accepted that in a mandatory coalition that would be difficult. But they are – I think the ministers’ code of practice is that they are supposed, where possible, to achieve decision-making by consensus, but the norms of collective responsibility as we would understand it from, you know, the Whitehall model, for example, don’t apply.
Lady Hallett: Going back to the question of leaking, which I find extraordinary, and I did ask one witness, I think, why do they bother to take the ministerial oath if they’re just going to disobey it, but, I mean, there are practical ways, although not with remote meetings as pointed out this morning, but there are practical ways, like saying you can’t be using your device when you’re physically present in a room, but has anybody looked into whether there are any legal devices? Like is it misconduct in a public office?
Professor O’Connor: Hm, I don’t (inaudible), no.
Lady Hallett: It’s just a thought. If you take an oath –
Professor O’Connor: No, well, it does go against integ – as a civil servant, it would go against your integrity, and that is part of your code of conduct.
Lady Hallett: But it must breach the Ministerial Code. When you attend an Executive meeting, you’re conducting your public office. I just think it’s something that this country or this – Northern Ireland should not have to put up with, and I’m just trying to think of ways to try and stop it.
Professor Gray: Yes. Although we do have, you know, prior to the pandemic we had, you know, a number of examples of ministers speaking in public against another minister or, on some occasions, a minister taking another minister to court over decisions, and I think, you know, as Professor O’Connor said earlier, it is just the unique circumstances of our arrangements, our governance arrangements here that such things are tolerated or maybe expected.
Lady Hallett: I think it’s time they stopped being tolerated, but there again I’m an outsider, so –
Professor O’Connor: No, we fully agree as well, yeah.
Lady Hallett: Thank you both very much indeed.
As I say, thank you for your written report, I’ll make sure I read that with greater care; poor Ms Dobbin had to canter through this afternoon.
Ms Dobbin: Yes, I apologise for that.
Lady Hallett: Thank you very much for your help, very grateful.
Professor O’Connor: Thank you.
(The witnesses withdrew)
Lady Hallett: Very well, 10 o’clock tomorrow morning, please.
(4.28 pm)
(The hearing adjourned until 10 am on Tuesday, 14 May 2024)