2. Ms Diane Dodds

MS DIANE DODDS (sworn).

Questions From Counsel to the Inquiry

Counsel Inquiry: Good afternoon. Would you provide your full name, please.

Ms Diane Dodds: Diane Dodds.

Counsel Inquiry: I understand, Lady Dodds, that that is your formal title, Lady Dodds, but your preference is that you use the term Mrs Dodds; that’s customary for your political background?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes, so my work environment, yes. Thank you.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you for assisting the Inquiry. Can I ask you to keep your voice up, speak into the microphone. It may be that one of us goes too quickly, in which case we’ll need to slow down the pace.

You provided a witness statement dated 13 March 2024. That’s at INQ000436924.

Your signature and the statement of truth is at page 46. Please can you confirm that the contents of that statement are true?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes, they are.

Counsel Inquiry: And you’re content to rely upon the statement in evidence to the Inquiry?

Ms Diane Dodds: I am.

Counsel Inquiry: If I can just summarise your political career very briefly. So you were elected as a Democratic Unionist MLA for Belfast West in 2003. You held a position as a Democratic Unionist councillor in Belfast City Council in 2005. You were elected as a Democratic Unionist member of the European Parliament in 2009. And then you were co-opted to the Northern Ireland Assembly as a Democratic Unionist MLA on 11 January 2020. Is that correct?

Ms Diane Dodds: That is correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Relevantly to the Inquiry, you were appointed as Minister for the Economy from 11 January 2020 to 13 June 2021, is that also correct?

Ms Diane Dodds: That is correct.

Counsel Inquiry: Your statement sets out the responsibilities of the Department for the Economy, so I won’t propose to deal with that here.

If I could just deal firstly with funding of Northern Ireland, is it correct that Northern Ireland’s predominantly funded through the block grant?

Ms Diane Dodds: It is. Northern Ireland gets an allocation from the block grant. This year it is around 14.5 billion, and that funds public services, education.

Counsel Inquiry: The main part of the block grant is what’s called a Barnett consequential, so about 3% of what Westminster spends is then provided to Northern Ireland; is that right?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes. Well, Barnett consequentials come to Northern Ireland on foot of decisions made primarily on new policy for England and Wales, and therefore Northern Ireland gets a consequential amount of funding in relation to that as well as the block grant.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you. Northern Ireland’s able to spend those consequentials exactly how it wishes; is that right?

Ms Diane Dodds: Sometimes those consequentials can be ringfenced or identified for a particular purpose, but mostly they can be used in whatever way the Northern Ireland Executive wants to use them.

Counsel Inquiry: You say in your statement that the Assembly was never going to be able to provide the enormous amounts of funding required in order to fund the response to the pandemic. So is it right that effectively Northern Ireland couldn’t have funded the response without the additional funding from the United Kingdom Government?

Ms Diane Dodds: No, the – I actually – first of all, I don’t think that any devolved regional assembly could have actually funded their response to the Covid pandemic in the way that it was done.

So Northern Ireland very much relied upon the furlough scheme, the self-employed scheme, the bounceback loans, the kind of measures that were put there nationally, but in addition to that we then developed schemes of our own to support the economy here.

And an interesting, probably, aside for the Inquiry to consider is that in the – the Northern Ireland Audit Office has done a series of reports on the Executive’s response to the pandemic, mainly outlining the financial and the schemes and so on, and by – in the second Northern Ireland Audit Office report – and I apologise, I should have added this as information and can add it as an addendum if you so wish – in the second Audit Office report, by the end of March 2021, Northern Ireland, the pandemic happened – about 6.2 billion had been spent additional to the block grant –

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Ms Diane Dodds: – in Northern Ireland.

Counsel Inquiry: If I can just break down some of those figures.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So by 19 March 2020 to –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: – there was over £900 million available through Barnett consequentials. Does that sound about right?

Ms Diane Dodds: No, the Northern Ireland Audit Office reports indicates that by – of that 6.2 billion, around 3.9 billion was direct action in relation to the economy and wider services, so vulnerable people, et cetera, et cetera, and 3.3 billion of that was from Barnett consequentials.

Counsel Inquiry: I think we’re talking about two slightly different timeframes.

Ms Diane Dodds: Oh, sorry.

Counsel Inquiry: So by 19 March 2020 there was –

Ms Diane Dodds: Oh, 2020, sorry. I mean 2021. I’ve raced ahead, I apologise.

Counsel Inquiry: That’s absolutely fine because we have the – Sir David Sterling indicated that the Northern Ireland Audit Office had confirmed by 24 July 2020, 2.2 billion had been provided. So you can see it actually starts quite high and then the numbers increase over the lifetime of the pandemic.

Ms Diane Dodds: They do, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: You also then say in your statement that officials had been looking at whether there’s any funds to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, and that with the benefit of hindsight that there were actions, for example PPE and scaling up testing, could have been planned a lot earlier, but that would have required vast sums of money.

Would you be able to expand upon what with the benefit of hindsight the additional preparations you think should have been?

Ms Diane Dodds: Well, I think that, as we went through the late January/February period in relation to that preparation period, we will have known, and the Department of Health will have known, that we will have a great need for some of these things. And on 12 March, if I can recall accurately, we – the department took a decision, the Department of Health, to stop testing, and I do believe that that was in part because there were not enough tests to actually facilitate the mass testing that we might have otherwise concluded.

Now, we have some amazing pharmaceutical companies in Northern Ireland, and those pharmaceutical companies developed tests as the pandemic went on and had a very large role in testing across the whole of the United Kingdom, but it was partly capacity, planning and finance.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes. Thank you.

In terms of planning, as you say there, just picking the threads of the Barnett consequentials, was there sufficient clarity to your department or the Department of Finance about both the amounts and the dates on which there would be the payment of the Barnett consequentials which would then allow the Northern Ireland Government to plan its response?

Ms Diane Dodds: So if we’re talking about the early part of the pandemic, I don’t think that – and of course you will have to ask the Department of Finance this in their evidence. I recall on – and I have reviewed some of the Executive papers – that an Executive paper on 16 March, one of the agreements was that departments would look in their own budgets where there would be additional funding that they could use in the response to the pandemic. But of course it was never going to be possible to have enough money within those budgets to have the enormous response that was required, and I think really the announcement of furlough on 20 March, which was then backdated to 1 March, that first national scheme and some of the additional funding that started to come then was one of the first times that we could see a way within the economy to financially support firms and companies and individuals.

Counsel Inquiry: Carrying on with furlough, we know that it was extended on at least two occasions in the autumn and in the winter of 2020?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: To what extent did the knowledge of whether furlough was going to be extended have any impact upon the ability of the Northern Ireland Government to plan its own spending arising from those additional Barnett consequentials?

Ms Diane Dodds: Oh, I think that that had a really significant impact on how you plan and how you mitigate in terms of the pandemic. If we think of September 2020, in September 2020 furlough was reduced to 70% of hours not worked. By October, furlough was to be reduced to 60% of hours not worked.

Now, that actually meant that there was a real fear that we would add huge numbers more to the unemployment register because firms could not continue to either make up the additional amount of money, because they weren’t operating at full value, or that firms would just simply say: we can’t do any more, that’s what we’ll do.

I’ll cite you one particular example which I think is quite important. Aerospace in Northern Ireland is a huge and very prestigious industry for Northern Ireland, and of course aerospace was absolutely devastated by that, and Bombardier announced 600 job losses in June, and the impact was in September when those redundancies came out.

Counsel Inquiry: So on that reduction, would the Northern Ireland Government have been able to fund the gap?

Ms Diane Dodds: No.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

If I could then move back into early 2020, so what did you consider was the role of the Executive prior to the activation of the civil contingencies arrangements on 16 March?

Ms Diane Dodds: So in the early part of 2020, I think there had been a decision where the Department of Health was leading on the planning and on all of the issues around the pandemic. I think TEO have a co-ordinating role within the government in Northern Ireland, and I think, if I recall a paper rightly, the Department of Justice was to look at how we would deal with issues around excess deaths, and how we would manage things as well.

So we had three departments that were looking at different aspects of the pandemic, and of course in our own department we were looking at, you know, the likely impacts.

By the beginning of March we were already beginning to see quite a significant number of layoffs.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, but in relation to the question, which was what was the role of the Executive prior to the activation of NICCMA, please could you explain what you understood the role of the Executive Committee as a body to be prior to 16 March.

Ms Diane Dodds: It, I think, should have been stood up at the request of the health minister to the First and deputy First Minister, and therefore the contingency arrangements would have been stood up in full, and it could have happened when it was deemed necessary to do it.

Lady Hallett: So are you saying it should have been stood up earlier?

Ms Diane Dodds: No, I’m saying that’s the process that it should have been stood up. Or that’s the process by – I think there are probably very good reasons that it may have been stood up earlier. I think that we, as an Executive Committee, throughout February probably had not so much information from the Department of Health around the planning for the pandemic, and I recall the meeting of 2 March where we had a very significant discussion in relation to that.

Mr Scott: Thank you.

If I can move to the planning within your individual department –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: – prior to 16 March, if we could have INQ000213585.

And this is an economic impact assessment –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yep.

Counsel Inquiry: – provided by your department dated 10 March 2020.

It’s right that the Department for the Economy had stood up its own operations centre on 26 February 2020, so it was engaged, certainly in the early part of March, in planning and had been for a couple of weeks?

Ms Diane Dodds: Mm-hm.

Counsel Inquiry: So this document was provided.

If we can go to the bottom of page 3, please.

So we can see at the bottom paragraph:

“At the time of writing [the] … Government’s reasonable worst case scenario planning assumptions …”

And then the department has actually assessed that against Northern Ireland’s growth at that time.

If I could move on, please, to page 6 and the last paragraph.

And again it’s providing the conclusion. That paper seems to be setting out what the impact is likely to be, but it doesn’t actually say what the department is likely to do about it.

Are you aware of what planning arose subsequent to this assessment on 10 March?

Ms Diane Dodds: Planning really began quite significantly after that, and particularly when furlough was announced that really was a game-changer in relation to protecting jobs and firms and the economy.

Then after that we were able to avail of significant funds that came from London, and we started to initiate the localised schemes which would start to sort of alleviate or mitigate the impact of the pandemic on individuals and businesses.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve actually slightly jumped ahead of me.

If we could have INQ000086935.

This is a document that’s been shown a number of times.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yep.

Counsel Inquiry: And happily the economy is the first page here.

So if we can just scroll down to page 2, please, and then we’ll come back to page 1.

So we can see in “Further Education”, for example, that in the central column, “Potential Impacts”, we have – it’s talking about disruption, potential costs to support –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yep.

Counsel Inquiry: – others and impact upon those. So that was what was assessed against the further education.

If we can just go back to page 1, please, we can see that in relation to the top line, “Economy/Business”, that those impacts aren’t identified.

Do you think that the reason why those impacts aren’t identified in relation to economy/business is, as you said, that the funding position about what would the response be able to be at that point?

Ms Diane Dodds: I’m not sure, in a sense, because this was officials drawing up their list at that time, and we changed this – as time went on we worked very hard at providing economic impacts to the Executive and so on.

So we knew that if there is a pandemic, if people cannot work, if people are ill, if businesses close down, then obviously there is going to be increased unemployment. And in actual fact, by the end of April 2020 we had doubled the number of unemployed in Northern Ireland, so it was a really significant, difficult first hit at the economy in relation to that.

We were also really concerned that new and developing businesses, like the creative industries, couldn’t operate.

And if I could just point out another sector of the economy that –

Counsel Inquiry: Ms Dodds, apologies to cut across you, just it would be beneficial – there will be an opportunity to have a look at some of those papers – if I can ask you to focus on the documents that I’m showing you and the questions that are being asked.

You said that this is a document that had been prepared by officials.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yep.

Counsel Inquiry: Had you seen this or seen what any plans were about how to support the economy as of 13 March 2020?

Ms Diane Dodds: I could not tell you whether I saw it of 13 March 2020, but across the course of the pandemic I saw many iterations of this kind of scenario planning.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

If I can just take you to – it’s the handwritten notes of the Executive meeting as of 15 April.

So it’s INQ000065735, and it’s at page 16. And this is about …

(Pause)

Counsel Inquiry: So if we can then go over the page, please.

So we can see there’s a discussion about the regulations, and then there’s “DFE”, whenever we see those, then that’s a reference –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – to yourself, and that’s to be distinguished from “DE”, which is the education minister.

We can see that you’ve identified there the potential economic impact.

If we can then just go over to page 18, and we have the opening line of the DoH, so that would be the health minister, is:

“Economic challenge my focus is health.”

Ms Diane Dodds: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you feel like there was a sufficiently effective working relationship between yourself and the health minister, or the Department for the Economy and the Department of Health, about responding to the pandemic, both as a public health and as an economic matter?

Ms Diane Dodds: The pandemic was primarily a health challenge, and the focus of the Executive was always on the issue of how to save life and minimise the issues for families and so on in that. But the wider ramifications of the pandemic and the economic downturn that it caused, the challenge to families, to, you know, vulnerable workers, to people on zero-hours contracts, those were very, very real. And I suppose the challenge in all of this was to take the health advice but also try to look at the issue in a rounded way, by looking at all of the people who were impacted by the pandemic.

And I noticed in the health minister’s submission where he talks about this in his evidence to the Inquiry, and he actually talks about this, and he says, you know, that – you know, at times we – you know, and he mentions me by name as saying, you know, a strong advocate for the economy. But those two, health and the economy, were not – and this is his words, not mine – a consistent tension within the Executive, and it didn’t stop decisions being made and being reached, but it was important to have a rounded picture of what was happening to all sections of our society.

Counsel Inquiry: And that’s what I wanted to ask you about. If we can go to page 20, it’s that you say at the second entry there:

“[Very] useful if [Department for the Economy] officials [could] be involved.”

Then the CMO says:

“Economist in DOH – reaching out to DFE officials …”

Do you actually think that there was that cohesive relationship not just in terms of approach to the economic and public health maintenance, but actually a working relationship between the two departments, or was there a distance between the two?

Ms Diane Dodds: The nature of government in Northern Ireland is that it is quite siloed. So ministers have legal responsibility within their own department, they are responsible for the operational issues in their department, and the central office of First and deputy First Minister, or TEO, comes in, in that co-ordinating role, in bringing things together, or in cross-cutting issues.

So, for example, the strategy for – against women – women and girls against violence is held in TEO because it’s a cross-cutting strategy that reaches across all of the departments in Northern Ireland. So there is always this kind of healthy tension around departments.

And I don’t say that just in the case of the pandemic, I think that is the case across departments.

But I don’t think that it stops departments working together, but sometimes officials can be quite – and ministers – precious about their own department.

Counsel Inquiry: Well, that’s what I was going to ask you, because the cross-cutting structures are intended to bring the ministers together, but does the individual responsibility of a minister’s own department have the impact that when it’s not a cross-cutting measure that it actually drives the departments slightly apart?

Ms Diane Dodds: Except when those issues are deemed to be significant, cross-cutting are controversial.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, thank you.

We can see again the CMO there was talking about the economists. Should the Executive Committee have had access to expert advice, something akin to the CMO or the CSA, to advise as to the economic impact of measures that were taken to respond to the pandemic?

Ms Diane Dodds: Well, it’s only the wider Executive could actually really respond to that. But in terms of what we were doing in the Department for the Economy, we had a various number of stakeholder groups, and those stakeholder groups comprised of people who were very eminent in business and the economy in Northern Ireland, so I had my economic advisory panel. That economic advisory panel was chaired by the former head of Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland, so they were very significant people – within the economy.

Counsel Inquiry: But they weren’t –

Ms Diane Dodds: – within the economy.

Counsel Inquiry: – in the Executive, though, they –

Ms Diane Dodds: No, they weren’t, but –

Counsel Inquiry: – providing the advice.

Ms Diane Dodds: – they were advising and inputting into the things that we were doing, which were then going to the Executive.

Counsel Inquiry: But do you think that it would have been beneficial, either to yourself as the economy minister or to the wider Executive, that there would have been those voices in the Executive meeting or providing their own advice?

Ms Diane Dodds: They may have been, and that might have been seen less as a departmental issue and more as a cross-cutting issue. But I am content that within my department that we had significant recourse to very, very expert advice in terms of the economy.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving on to a slightly different element of the overall response to the pandemic, and that is the consideration of equalities.

Do you consider that sufficient consideration was given to the potential impact upon those who would be most disadvantaged by the response to the pandemic? When I say that, sufficient consideration within the planning conducted by your own department.

Ms Diane Dodds: I think that we tried to respond to the pandemic with very, very significant haste. So in the initial phase, when we were – it was confirmed, for example, that we had significant funding, within – and probably the first regional devolved administration in the United Kingdom, we had our 10,000 scheme out for local businesses within the categories that that applied. So we tried to respond very quickly.

Do I think that overall, either in my department – well, in my department we looked, we produced schemes, we tried to enact them, and where there were – when we reviewed those schemes, we reviewed them in light of our section 75 obligations.

But I don’t think, and I think that this – there is a learning in this for the future, in that I do think that the issues, for me, of young students with mental health issues – and even though we provided very, very significant funds to universities, they were hard to reach, and it was more difficult for universities to do that. College students, we provided, you know, laptops. We had all sorts of schemes to try to help them to learn and work at home, but I think that taking away that social environment and so on was very, very difficult for young people.

And again, if I may say so, I think also the impact of the pandemic in terms of the economy was very unequal. So we have a large public sector in Northern Ireland. That pretty much carried on –

Counsel Inquiry: Can I just pause the public sector element, because you were talking about colleges, you were talking about the impact upon those attending colleges, there’s one document I’d like to take you to, because one of the Department for the Economy’s responsibilities is –

Ms Diane Dodds: Further –

Counsel Inquiry: – further education. Thank you.

So just for reference, this is INQ000212403.

Lady Hallett: Before you ask the question, I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr Scott.

What did you say the learning was? That the people you then talked about, the students with mental health issues, that you should have paid greater – the Executive should have paid greater attention to them at the beginning, you talked about there being a learning. I’m sorry, I didn’t quite follow the –

Ms Diane Dodds: I think the learning is that we need to place more emphasis on things that maybe – we were so concerned with the transmission of the virus that we also need to place more emphasis on things that we may not have seen as central to what we had to do to save lives.

Lady Hallett: So place more emphasis on the wider impact?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes, yes.

Mr Scott: And in order to do that, I think you probably need to accurately recognise when there’s likely to be an impact upon groups; is that a fair suggestion?

Ms Diane Dodds: Sorry, if you could repeat that.

Counsel Inquiry: In order to be able do that, you probably need to be able to accurately recognise, as a department, when there is an impact upon either a section 75 group or somebody who doesn’t fall within a section 75 group; is that right?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: So this policy that’s on the screen, if we can just scroll down a fraction just to show the date, so this is 26 February 2020, so it was the day that the department operating centre had opened, and this is about the power to close further education colleges and higher education institutions.

If we can go down to page 6, and it sets out the background and, as it’s trying to achieve, it’s:

“To prevent and control the outbreak of Covid-19 …”

And if we can then go to page 7, please.

And again that confirms that’s the Department for the Economy’s policy.

I would just like to go down to page 12. Because you have a number of the section 75 groups, one of them is age, for example, and then we can see there that it’s broken down by age.

Then if we just scroll to page 15, again, there’s statistics set out about disability. You can see there’s the impact on disability and not disabled.

So there’s a lot of information there within this policy about what the make-up was of those who were students at a further education or higher education college.

If we can go to page, I think, 19 first, please, so we can see again there that the closure is potentially impacting across the entire student population?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And effectively it’s the same wording apart from the last clause which is relating back.

If we can go to page 26, and we can see there, for example, “Disability”, now, the right-hand column is the assessment of the department about the equality implications, all the equality implications for all these groups are marked as:

“None, as the impact would be the same across all [section] 75 groupings.”

Is it right that the Department for the Economy can have recognised that there would be no equality impact upon any section 75 group from the closing of higher education colleges or further education colleges?

Ms Diane Dodds: I don’t think it’s actually saying that. What I think it’s actually saying is that the impact is the same as it would have been across all section 75. I mean – and I’m not sure why it was written in that way. I think everyone understood –

Counsel Inquiry: I don’t want to be unfair, if I can show you the conclusion at page –

Ms Diane Dodds: Okay.

Counsel Inquiry: So:

“Given the decision to close or temporary redirect … does not indicate any disproportionate impacts on any [section] 75 grouping.”

Ms Diane Dodds: Oh, right, okay.

Well, I am genuinely not sure, and – why that was written in that way. I think anyone knows and understands – and particularly in further education colleges, where we have a very significant group of very vulnerable young adults who go to further education colleges – that closing those education colleges will have a significant impact.

Now, I do think – and this was a very, very early draft of the document – I do think that as the pandemic went on we realised and knew how difficult that this was for some of those young people, many of them with particular special educational needs and a range of difficulties. And it was also difficult for their parents, who had no respite and were afraid that those young people could go out with the virus.

So it’s an early document, I’m not trying to excuse the writing of it at all in any shape or form, but I do think as time went on, I am desperately conscious of how the pandemic impacted those people.

Counsel Inquiry: The purpose of my next question is actually about the development of the department’s understanding –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – and identification.

Are you able to identify the development from within the department to access and understand those people who may be impacted upon the decisions that the department was taking or the decisions that the Executive was taking as a whole?

Ms Diane Dodds: I am, inasmuch as we produced a very wide range of papers about the impact of Covid on various sections of our society. And when I talk about the impact of Covid on sections of our society, it is about the impact on young people who lose their jobs, young apprentices who are in maybe the second year of their apprenticeship who cannot continue. It is about the people on zero-hours contracts who find themselves unemployed and in very significant financial difficulties. And that is – that is, I think, the impact of Covid in its widest sense.

In many ways, as I was saying, the impact of Covid on the economy was unequal. We had – we have a very large public sector in Northern Ireland, which continued pretty much as it was, and we have some really hero – heroes within that public sector, nurses, doctors –

Counsel Inquiry: Apologies, Mrs Dodds, if you could, please, focus on the question. I will be coming back to the impact upon the public sector.

The question was how the department improved its understanding of those – like all those groups you identified who could be impacted, how it improved its understanding of the impact upon those groups as the pandemic developed.

Ms Diane Dodds: Right, so, for example, in terms of young people, young apprentices, we developed our apprenticeship scheme, and around £19 million went to an apprenticeship scheme to try to bring and keep young people in the workplace. Because many of those young people, one, their college, with all the practical work that they were doing, was closed, and their firms were maybe considering whether they should make them unemployed or furlough them. And those apprenticeship schemes that we developed and rolled out from the summer of 2020 were really significant in keeping skills, trades and young people in jobs.

Counsel Inquiry: I want to move now in terms of businesses generally, the department came up with the Engagement Forum.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: If you could just briefly set out the – what the purpose of setting up the Engagement Forum was.

Ms Diane Dodds: The Engagement Forum arose out of difficulties within industry around what was an essential industry, how to keep workers safe. It also arose from, I think, a little bit of mixed messaging that arose in the early days of the pandemic at – within the Executive.

The Engagement Forum was a really useful tool in bringing business, trade unions, health and safety, the Public Health Agency, all of that very wide – councils who were – environmental health people from councils, all of those people who were engaged within the workplace in trying to make sure that some of our essential industry could continue but that they could – we could be assured that workers were safe.

Counsel Inquiry: How effective was the Engagement Forum at performing those roles?

Ms Diane Dodds: I think the Engagement Forum, it had, it was – it had a task, a single task, that was to produce the working safely through the Covid pandemic document. It did that. It did further work in 2020 in relation to recovery and how we might look and have an inclusive recovery. And those who were engaged in the forum found it very, very useful. And in fact it’s probably a forum that is useful for any time, not just the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: Could more use have been made of it, do you think?

Ms Diane Dodds: Potentially.

Counsel Inquiry: And when did it effectively cease to be producing any output?

Ms Diane Dodds: I think it continued to meet probably late into 2020. Certainly, the forum was around, and I had contact with the Labour Relations Agency throughout my tenure.

Counsel Inquiry: Did it have any role, for example, in the economic recovery through 2021?

Ms Diane Dodds: I – I – well, would it have inputted into the economic recovery plan or –

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes. I am unsure whether he – they were specifically identified, but they would have sat on the wider stakeholder groups. So the department has very, very wide stakeholder groups where trade unions and, you know, a very wide range of people are engaged in bringing these things together, and the economic recovery plan was not something that was dreamt of by officials; it was designed and co-designed by people within business and unions and so on.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes. Moving on then to the creation of the coronavirus regulations that were made on 28 March 2020, you didn’t have any input –

Ms Diane Dodds: No.

Counsel Inquiry: – into the content of those regulations?

Do you think, as the Minister for the Economy of Northern Ireland, that you should have had an input into the content of them, given the impact that they would have upon business in Northern Ireland?

Ms Diane Dodds: On reflection, probably, but they were health regulations, and the Department of Health owned the regulations, and –

Counsel Inquiry: But that was going to have an impact that was going to go a lot wider than just health?

Ms Diane Dodds: It was, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And –

Ms Diane Dodds: And the – they reflected the Coronavirus Act, and the regulations were part of the Northern Ireland –

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, but also going slightly further in your role as a minister, you would also want to make sure that the regulations would reflect the important aspects of Northern Irish society, rather than simply aping what had been done in England. Is that a fair assessment?

Ms Diane Dodds: Well, the regulations were very tailored to Northern Ireland in many, many ways –

Counsel Inquiry: When they were initially made?

Ms Diane Dodds: Oh, well, no, but as the regulations grew and developed and were adapted, they were very tailored to Northern Ireland, and you can see exhaustive conversations about the regulations in the information you have.

Counsel Inquiry: But the focus is starting in a place which accurately represents the importance of facets of Northern Irish society rather than adopting them as time goes on?

Ms Diane Dodds: The focus was on health. So the focus was on health, and those then became a wider set of regulations which were adapted many, many times, but they – one department has to own the regulations, and the Department of Health was the owner of the regulations.

Counsel Inquiry: As those regulations developed, so through April and then into May 2020, did you ever get frustrated with what you may have perceived was a lack of progress or a lack of willingness to engage with expanding the economic response rather than just the public health response?

Ms Diane Dodds: In the early part of the pandemic, we were all focused on the health response. There – I mean, I think I say in my evidence that I think that the lockdown was inevitable, that there was very little more that we could actually do, and we – there was a lot of work done in the early part on mitigation. But we had to expand our lives as we started to get the virus under control, and I think that you will probably have numerous documents and submissions from myself and the department around how we might take steps in terms of economic recovery.

Counsel Inquiry: If we can just show one of those now, INQ000226537. And this is a letter from yourself, Mrs Dodds, to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, dated 6 May 2020. And then I think that middle paragraph probably encapsulates a large element of what you were just saying and what you have been saying today? About the breadth of the impact and upon your –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – approach?

Ms Diane Dodds: I think that the pandemic – I mean, first and foremost, it impacted people who suffered from the virus and who lost their lives.

Counsel Inquiry: Because if we then go –

Ms Diane Dodds: But it had a very wide, invasive impact on every part of our society.

Counsel Inquiry: Because if we go over to page 2, and then this is about you pressing the economic case, which was your responsibility as the minister for the Department for the Economy; is that right?

Ms Diane Dodds: I think it would seem almost incredible if the Minister for the Economy was not speaking about the economy and the impacts that the recession that we were currently experiencing and the lockdown would have on the economy and would have on people within the economy. It’s not just about businesses; it’s about the people, and so on, and those jobs and those families that are impacted.

Counsel Inquiry: Because you followed up on this letter on 9 May, and then you sent a further letter on 11 May in which you say:

“Unfortunately it seems that most of my concerns raised in the response [to this letter] still exist.”

Did you feel that at that point in early to mid-May 2020 that the points you were trying to raise about the importance of economic recovery were actually getting through?

Ms Diane Dodds: I think in May, most people in the Executive still wanted to focus on the pandemic, but we were – we were managing our way through lockdown, but we couldn’t keep the restrictions in place forever, and we needed to lift our eyes and look about how we would mitigate that lockdown.

And I think I – there is a paper that I sent to the Executive around the first steps to economic recovery and how we might consider taking ourselves out of lockdown and the very, very incremental steps that would be needed to try to do that. So I, you know –

Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to try and take you to some of your wording at the Executive Committee meetings which hopefully will reflect some of these points, but before I do that, on 21 May 2020 at the Executive Committee meeting, you said that you were disappointed economic recovery not on the agenda. Were there times when you were trying to raise a paper for the agenda or trying to have a topic considered at the Executive but was actually then not put on the agenda?

Ms Diane Dodds: I think at that particular time, there was a very, very strong focus only on the pandemic and the health issues of the pandemic, and it was more difficult to get Executive Ministers to look at the rounded picture that we needed them to look at. We now know that lockdown has had really serious ramifications for health. We have the longest waiting lists in Europe. It has had really serious ramifications for Northern Ireland, and considering the whole information was really important.

I followed up the paper in May with a strategy for medium-term economic recovery, so I think we had from the department lots of information to go on, but we needed a wider conversation.

Counsel Inquiry: In terms of that wider conversation, then, so, again, just returning to a point I was asking you about earlier on. How did you inform yourself as a department upon the impact of the response to the pandemic upon vulnerable people, so people, groups, such as the disabled people?

Ms Diane Dodds: The department – I mean, as I say, we looked at how – I mean, my department would have been concerned about how we include disabled people within the further education sphere, within the universities, higher education. It would have been looking at the impact of lockdown on the ability to engage in the workforce. But of course the absolute truth of this in this situation is that many people with disabilities who were shielding were at home, and it was an incredibly difficult period for those people.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes, but, again, it doesn’t quite answer the question about how the department was trying to inform itself so it understood the issues that were facing those groups.

Is it – do you know what the department did, or is it just a bit too long ago to be able to provide the specificity of it?

Ms Diane Dodds: I cannot recall the specifics of what the department did, but the out-workings of that are seen in some of the actions that we took and the plans that we put in place, and apprenticeships is a very good example of that.

Counsel Inquiry: Thank you.

I want to move on now to social distancing reduction. So that occurred in June 2020. That was something that you had been pressing for at the 11 June and 15 June Executive Committee meetings; is that right?

Ms Diane Dodds: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: And, effectively, there was a consensus within the Executive. It wasn’t just yourself or other members of your party who were seeking to advance this. There was other members of other parties.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: Is that right?

Then on 23 June, the Prime Minister announced that social distancing guidance in England would be reduced to 1 metre –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – and was that then a spark which then led on 25 June to the decision being taken to actually reduce from 2 metres to 1 metre?

Ms Diane Dodds: So there were a number of issues in relation to social distancing. So if – social distancing at 2 metres for many businesses would have made them unviable, so they simply couldn’t have opened.

Counsel Inquiry: Yes.

Ms Diane Dodds: It wouldn’t have been possible because there just simply wasn’t enough room to do that and the number of tables that you could get in. I remember long discussions and discussed this with Sir Michael McBride, the CMO, on a number of occasions, and we came to the conclusion that, you know, this was a decision for the Executive. And, as I say, there was a range of Executive ministers who wanted to do this in order to try to get us back on some kind of even keel but that it could only be done with other mitigations in place, and I think shortly thereafter, the face masks were introduced in businesses and public life and so on.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m not going to take you to your wording, but in those meetings, you were balancing the need for the economic recovery with the health concerns.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes, yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And, again, it’s right that you were receiving advice from the CMO and the CSA about the potential impact –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – of the reductions, but they weren’t at that time saying that it shouldn’t be done.

Ms Diane Dodds: No, that’s right. That’s right.

Counsel Inquiry: Around the same time, there was a decision taken to bring in indicative dates about when the easing of restrictions which had been outlined in the Executive approach to decision-making from 12 May 2020.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: It was around that time that the indicative discussion took place.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes. So it was – the idea was to try to have an incremental approach to easing restrictions. I don’t think anyone in the Executive wanted in any shape or form to go back, but we knew, and I don’t think we could have had compliance if we hadn’t made some efforts in order to try to ease life for people in Northern Ireland.

Counsel Inquiry: Did in the end, though, adding indicative dates become problematic because it provided a focus point for businesses and other sectors to say, well, that’s the date that we’re working towards, and then if in the event that those dates couldn’t be met, it almost became worse than if no date had been given in the first place?

Ms Diane Dodds: So this is a complex issue. So the paper was issued with no dates, and that was a big problem for business, so we then decided to say that on such and such a date in June or July, we will do whatever if the R rate and the transmission of the virus allows us to do that. It perhaps maybe built us up to expectations, but I think it was one of those issues where business didn’t want and the society in general didn’t want, and I don’t know – I remember and I recall very clearly the campaign to open holiday parks to allow people to go to mobile homes and caravans and so on. So we had to – we had to give people some sense of when things were going to happen, but always with the caveat that it was important that we were in the right place in terms of R.

Counsel Inquiry: On reflection, with the way that indicative dates were handled, would you do anything differently if it was to happen again?

Ms Diane Dodds: That – I genuinely can’t answer that. I think we did what we could at the time, and I think that hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing, and we – but I don’t think that we could have done radically different things. I think we tried to manage expectations about re-opening, but we also tried to manage the safety and health and wellbeing of people.

Counsel Inquiry: Moving then on to your view of the impact of the Bobby Storey funeral. Again, just to be clear, I’m not going to ask you for your view on the merits of what happened on that day. I’m interested in your view on what the impact was on the response to the pandemic.

You say in your statement – if we can have INQ000436924, page 15, paragraph 57.

My note has gone wrong. It runs from page 56, paragraph 56 into 57, but what you say is:

“It’s my personal view that the single biggest issue and topic of conversation in relation to compliance …”

It’s the top of paragraph 56. I’m very grateful.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: “… in relation to compliance and the spread of the virus during the summer of 2020 was the burial of Bobby Storey.”

If we do go back to page – to paragraph 56, I’ll provide the right instructions in a minute. If we could go back to paragraph 57, apologies.

Lady Hallett: It happens to us all, Mr Scott.

Mr Scott: Then:

“Another, though less significant factor in my view is that the ‘Eat Out to Help Out’ scheme was also introduced in summer 2020.”

Dealing with one point about Eat Out to Help Out; you weren’t consulted?

Ms Diane Dodds: No.

Counsel Inquiry: What are you basing your assessment that the biggest issue about compliance and the words “the spread of the virus” was the Bobby Storey funeral as opposed to any other factor?

Ms Diane Dodds: So I think we have to take ourselves back just ever so slightly. In the months before the funeral, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister had spent very, very significant periods of time giving daily press conferences, telling people that they could do this, or they couldn’t do that, or they couldn’t do the other, and they had spent – and those press conferences in our community in Northern Ireland were very well listened to, attended, you know.

They were very – I think they were an effective communication tool in that sense, and it was an effective way that these two leaders could do this. And in those press conferences, we asked people to do really difficult things, and it’s – so it’s important to remember that. And then we had the funeral of Mr Storey, where we had thousands of people on the streets. Where we had, I don’t know, a memorial – I don’t know what really is the proper phrase for it – at Milltown Cemetery, and where on the same day that other families had to bury their loved ones, the Storey family were allowed into the crematorium but others weren’t.

So I think in that, and in that act and in attending that, that there was almost the signal that “you can do as I say but not as I do”. And I think that that – and I don’t have scientific data for it, so I’m going to pre-empt that part of your question. I don’t have scientific data for it, but I do think it was very, very significant.

And I haven’t seen the newly found minutes of the Executive meeting after the Bobby Storey funeral, but I remember it, where many of the ministers, not just from my party but across the Executive, were really – thought that the communication tool that we had used very effectively in Northern Ireland was incredibly damaged by what had happened and that there was almost kind of like a … an entitlement that I could do this but other families couldn’t.

Counsel Inquiry: You’ve answered the scientific advice point. So in terms of the relationship with the – between the Executive members, in and around late June 2020, had there been discussions amongst the Executive about issues such as numbers at funerals –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes, there –

Counsel Inquiry: – and numbers of gatherings.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And at any point had it been raised with any of the Executive Committee members that an issue such as – scenes such as were seen at Mr Storey’s funeral may happen?

Ms Diane Dodds: No.

Counsel Inquiry: Did those circumstances have –

Ms Diane Dodds: I actually – sorry, can I just say, on the day of the funeral, I actually had meetings all day. I didn’t actually see it, but I saw it later on the news. I didn’t see it.

Counsel Inquiry: Did the circumstances about what you’ve been discussing in the run-up to Mr Storey’s funeral in the context of what then happened, did that have any impact upon the ability of the Executive to work together and the relations between the individual ministers?

Ms Diane Dodds: Oh, I – I think it damaged relations. I cannot say that it didn’t damage relations. I think it did. But what I – and I think it’s really important to stress this, but even though – I suppose, I’m not quite sure how to express it, but people felt let down by what had happened. People felt annoyed. This is just Executive ministers, not real people out in our community, so that – it was really difficult then to stand at another press conference and actually say “we are going to allow you to do this” when all of this had taken place just a few days before it.

So I think that there was real anger. I think Executive ministers from across different parties expressed the view that we were severely damaged by this particular event, and I think as well that maybe the lack of remorse in the immediate aftermath of the funeral for having done this was really important. And if you contrast that with –

Counsel Inquiry: Apologies, Ms Dodds, but –

Ms Diane Dodds: Sorry.

Counsel Inquiry: – if I could just take you slightly forward. Unless there is anything particularly that you really want to say at that point, if I could just ask to address the increase in rates in autumn 2020 and your actions –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – in autumn 2020.

At any point in autumn 2020, do you consider that you went against the scientific advice that you had been provided by the CMO and the CSA, and if so, would you please say when that was?

Ms Diane Dodds: What I asked for in the autumn of 2020 was, as I have stressed all along, and I note that the Chief Scientific Officer said, I saw it as my duty to represent those people that my department engaged with, those people in the economy – workers, women, young people, people who were really severely impacted by the series of lockdowns. I hugely respected the advice, but I think I tested and questioned that advice, and I think that that is the right thing to do for a minister in the Executive, and I think that that is important.

Counsel Inquiry: But you do say in your statement:

“I’m not a scientist, but I have been in politics for a very long time and am accustomed to asking questions and scrutinising information.”

You may test advice, but if there’s no contrary advice, on what basis would you go against it when it’s talking about a matter such as public health transmission rates?

Ms Diane Dodds: I don’t think that I particularly went against the main thrust of the public health advice over the course of the pandemic at any time. Personally, I was very careful not to go against the thrust of that advice. I did question, I did test that advice, and there were times when that was the right thing to do, and I did put forward the view of those people who were deeply impacted by the pandemic.

Counsel Inquiry: But in terms of the slightly on again, off again restrictions that came in, in October through to December, do you not consider that at any point you actually did go against the advice by the CMO or the CSA by not accepting their recommendation or the restrictions that should have been applied at that time in order to provide what they considered to be the most effective response?

Ms Diane Dodds: Well, the CMO and the CSA have always given advice to the Executive. They gave that advice in the knowledge that the Executive would then have to apply all of the other issues that it had to balance in relation to that.

The autumn of 2020 was an exceptionally difficult time. I’ve described some of the economic issues, but there were huge issues for the transmission of the virus. There were huge issues for families who lost loved ones, and that will stay with all of us forever. So it’s important that when we are considering really impactful decisions that we look at those decisions in the round.

I don’t think that I went against advice, but I asked them to consider advice. I – at one stage, I had a meeting with the CMO and CSA and the health minister on regular occasions to see if there are other things that we could do that would help us to keep business open but to do it safely so that people would be safe, both those who work in it and those who would come in.

Counsel Inquiry: If I can test you with one point further from your own statement. You say:

“In March 2020, I believe the only approach available to decision-makers was to follow the science, by which I mean taking decisions based on the recommendations being provided by DoH, the CMO and CSA, which was in turn based on the best-available data and modelling then being produced.”

Did you change from that approach?

Ms Diane Dodds: No, I didn’t, but I think what did change and what – as we grew accustomed to the information and the science and the wider context of where we were, I think that we were able to question that more – more robustly than we may have done in March.

In March, I’m of the view that we could not have done anything differently.

Counsel Inquiry: I’m going to move on to the ECT that came in on 1 December, the Executive Covid Taskforce.

Now, I don’t know whether you’ve had the opportunity to see or hear any of the evidence that was provided by Jenny Pyper, the interim head of the Civil Service at the time?

Ms Diane Dodds: No.

Counsel Inquiry: The evidence of Ms Pyper was that – from the transcript that – so you haven’t heard it before – that:

“… there was push-back, particularly from two ministers, from the minister of health and the minister for the economy, not an absolute push-back but concerns were raised about how the taskforce would operate.”

And then:

“I think the economy minister remained throughout my time impatient with the pace of the lifting of restrictions as they applied to the business community particularly as we got beyond Easter, and a very strong call came from the hospitality and tourism sectors.”

Would you agree with that, or would you take a different view about whether you had any push-back to the creation of the ECT?

Ms Diane Dodds: I didn’t have any push-back to the creation of it. I had a push back, as did the Minister of Health, about the system that was being set up. So I generally viewed the taskforce as being a fairly process driven organisation so that civil servants tend to see everything through the lens of process. So if I describe how the taskforce would have worked in relation to the –

Counsel Inquiry: I don’t want to cover evidence that we’ve already heard because –

Ms Diane Dodds: No. No, this is entirely – so I would have sent up information to the taskforce about potentially looking at the re-opening of whatever. The taskforce then would have gone through a process of sifting and talking and bringing further information back to that, and then I would have heard from civil servants that this could not happen. I think it made ministers at one remove from what was the decisions over which they had legal responsibility as well.

Counsel Inquiry: But then again, the ECT wasn’t taking decisions, was it? It was providing its view as a structured approach to consider in the easing of restrictions.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: And it was then upon the ministers to decide whether they would agree with that suggestion or not.

Ms Diane Dodds: It was, but I think by the time it had gone through that process, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion. It was slow, cumbersome and process driven, and I am firmly of that view.

Counsel Inquiry: But it was definitely something that you could have pushed back against the advice that you were receiving from the ECT and challenged it and taken a different view.

Ms Diane Dodds: Well, I could have, but I wouldn’t have thought that there was a huge degree of success around that, and … I think it was a difficult format.

I often think that we could have had a more flexible approach, but I don’t think that that is the nature of the Civil Service in Northern Ireland.

Counsel Inquiry: Well, I believe – I haven’t got the reference to hand, but I believe you say in your statement that you were actually looking for a structured approach –

Ms Diane Dodds: Yes.

Counsel Inquiry: – to easing restrictions. But you’re suggesting that wasn’t the structured approach that you were looking for?

Ms Diane Dodds: It wasn’t a structured approach that I thought was flexible and transparent.

Counsel Inquiry: Okay.

The last topic is in relation to public statements that you made. So there was – on or around 21 September, there was a public statement that had been made by you to the effect that you’d warned that Northern Ireland simply couldn’t afford another lockdown.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: Do you remember that? And at that time, that contrasted with what the health minister had announced, that a circuit-breaker couldn’t be taken off the table.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yep.

Counsel Inquiry: Was it effective, in terms of the way that the population of Northern Ireland would receive ministers in public providing competing views, was that an effective way to convey the message to the population of Northern Ireland, or do you think that was just going to be confusing?

Ms Diane Dodds: I don’t see these statements in opposition to each other, in actual fact. I’m speaking as the Minister for the Economy, the minister responsible for people who may lose their jobs, for businesses who may have to lay off more workers because of the reduction in furlough, for an Executive that actually wasn’t really sure at that stage, in September, where the funding would come from. And as I mentioned, the 3.3 billion of 3.9 billion that came from central government for direct action on the virus in Northern Ireland was as a matter of Barnett consequentials. And I think better planning would have helped us all in relation to that. You know, better planning in relation to when we knew finance was going to be made available and how that – we could then direct that into action.

But in September 2020, businesses were allowed to recover 70% on furlough –

Counsel Inquiry: Can I just bring you back –

Ms Diane Dodds: – and only 60 on – in October.

Counsel Inquiry: If I can just bring you back to the point about public statements from two different ministers which may be providing two different perspectives, in this case the health perspective and the economy perspective.

Ms Diane Dodds: Yeah.

Counsel Inquiry: You may not have intended it or thought it was confusing. Would you accept that the population may have considered it confusing for these public statements to be made as opposed to these matters to have been dealt with entirely in the Executive Committee itself?

Ms Diane Dodds: That may be a point, but I’m very clear that those people whose jobs depended on what we could do and what mitigations we could provide needed to know how we could move forward.

So if we were going into a circuit-breaker, and I didn’t – that was what we did, then we needed to know how we could support people and how we could support businesses and how we could sustain it. Because in the long run, as we emerged from Covid, it was really important that we knew how we were going to be able to do all of that, and that we would have the level of skill and businesses retained within the economy to provide prosperity. And I do believe that a prosperous Northern Ireland is actually a stable Northern Ireland.

Counsel Inquiry: But don’t they need to hear that from the government that’s taken the decision about what’s to happen as opposed to what a minister would like to happen but which might not actually end up being the decision of the Executive Committee?

Ms Diane Dodds: People will have different views on it.

Mr Scott: I have no further questions, my Lady.

Lady Hallett: Thank you very much indeed for your help, Mrs Dodds. I’m very grateful.

The Witness: Thank you.

Lady Hallett: I don’t think I shall be asking you to come again, but I’m really grateful for the help you’ve given so far.

The Witness: Thank you.

(The witness withdrew)

Lady Hallett: Very well. I shall return at 3.15.

(3.00 pm)

(A short break)

(3.15 pm)

Lady Hallett: Ms Treanor.

Ms Treanor: Good afternoon, my Lady.

May I please call Deirdre Hargey and Carál Ní Chuilín.