Officials warned ministers of dire consequences of lockdown plan

Documents reveal the deep divisions between health and economic priorities as Nphet called for stricter health restrictions last October

In the October 13 briefing, the Department of Health said a core objective of moving to level 4 would be'the protection of the health system from an unmanageable incidence of Covid-19 in the population’.

Senior government officials warned the country’s Covid-19 oversight group that imposing stricter public health restrictions could “destabilise” the Northern Ireland Executive, jeopardise critical freight operations and “devastate“ jobs, incomes and businesses, as ministers scrambled to curtail the rapidly worsening crisis late last year.

Documents obtained by the Business Post show the intense internal pressure on ministers to resist requests from the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) to aggressively counter the rising tide of ...