Lucinda Creighton: Unless the coalition parties get results, Sinn Féin will lead the next government

If the government wants to stay in power beyond 2025, it must develop a strategy for living with Covid-19 and find a way to deliver housing

Mary Lou McDonald: as the main opposition party, Sinn Féin has enjoyed the luxury of being able to sit back and ridicule the government from afar. Picture: Charles McQuillan

As 2020 drew to a close, it seemed that we had lived through an annus horribilis like no other. All the dystopian movies about biowarfare and man-made pandemics seemed to have come true. We had managed to survive the unimaginable and anticipated a sunnier year in 2021. We had even seen modern medicine deliver new vaccines at breakneck speed, which meant that the prospects for the year ahead seemed bright.

Instead, January 2021 will forever ...