The North's Minister for Health has claimed a shipment of Covid-19 vaccine which was on its way from Belgium on Friday could have been disrupted had the EU followed through on plans to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol.
"This had potentially very real implications for ourselves because we had vaccine actually in transit, and had that article been enforced we may have seen difficulties in the supply and the arrival of vaccines here in Northern Ireland," Robin Swann told the North's Assembly on Monday.
The efforts of Department officials, he said, who were “working vigorously behind the scenes”, had ensured the vaccine shipment arrived in the North on Friday night and was then distributed through GP practices and vaccination centres.
The “vaccine is not something that should become political,” he said. “We have been very clear over the last year that in regards to how we fight Covid-19, it’s not about politics, it’s about saving lives.”
The political fallout continued in the North on Monday after the European Commission announced and then reversed plans on Friday to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol in order to prevent vaccines being shipped from the EU to Great Britain via the "back door" of Northern Ireland.
Article 16 allows either the UK or the EU to unilaterally take safeguarding measures if the application of the protocol leads to “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”.
The unionist parties – which are opposed to the protocol and want it suspended because it places a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea – have been calling for the UK government to invoke Article 16 to address the disruption to trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland since the protocol came into effect on January 1st.
‘Act of hostility’
These calls intensified on Monday, with the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, telling the BBC that she did not accept Friday's confusion had been a mistake on the part of the European Commission, describing it instead as "absolutely an act of hostility."
"I have to say directly to the Prime Minister and to the UK government that it is a dereliction of duty . . . to stand by and allow United Kingdom citizens to suffer and that is what he is allowing to do at present, so therefore action is absolutely needed," Ms Foster said.
Speaking in the North's Assembly, the TUV leader (Traditional Unionist Voice), Jim Allister, said "our trade is being strangled, our east west relationships have been emasculated, our consumers are being starved of supplies ... if ever there was a wake-up call to recognise the malevolent and iniquitous intent of the protocol this is it."
Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance party have criticised the Commission but called for calm and for the parties to work together with London, Dublin and Brussels to resolve issues around the operation of the protocol.
“It was wrong, simply wrong,” the Sinn Féin MLA John O’Dowd said, adding that “diplomacy” brought the issue “to the point where sense reigned in the European Commission . . . it wasn’t angry words, or foot stamping.
He said “no-one is starving, as Mr Allister claimed. “The economy has not been strangled as a result of the protocol. Those are all myths. They are mistruths, and they are provocative.
“So let’s calm ourselves, let’s work with each other, let’s work with Dublin and the British government, let’s work with the EU and ensure whatever outstanding issues there are around the protocol can be resolved,” he said.
