Stormont ministers urge Chancellor to extend furlough scheme

Ministers around the table backed the proposal by Finance Minister Conor Murphy to press the Treasury for an extension to the job retention scheme just weeks before it is due to end.

Around 200,000 employees in Northern Ireland benefit from the initiative.

Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill said the region is “going to hit our cliff edge very shortly”.

“Thousands of people are going to be without employment and what we need as an Executive is to be able to support those people in what is going to be a very challenging winter,” she said.

“We’re rehearsing our argument to the Treasury that this Executive needs support to be able to support people and the furlough scheme is the way to do that.”

During a lengthy Executive meeting on Thursday, ministers also agreed an indicative date of September 14 for the reopening of soft play areas.

However, no date has been agreed for the reopening of so-called wet pubs, serving alcohol without food.

Ms O’Neill also referred to “a lot more work to be done” ahead of the reopening of wet pubs.

Speaking separately, First Minister Arlene Foster said ministers will “intensely engage” with the hospitality sector over the coming days.

She said they also want to speak to the entertainment sector as many small bands have also been struggling during lockdown.

“I very much hope that we can give an indicative date to those wet pubs in the coming days,” she said.

Ms Foster said the other areas to make a decision over an indicative date include theatres.

“We hope that that will come next week as well,” she said.

Ms Foster also expressed concerns over the latest estimate of the R-number in Northern Ireland being 1.3.

“What we’re trying to do is open the economy but at the same time do it in a safe way because we were told today that the R number is about 1.3, we need to get it below one again,” she said.

“It is the younger population that seems to be affected now, in the previous iteration of Covid-19 in March/April it was the older population.

“Whilst that may not mean more hospital admissions, we are concerned that the younger people may take it home to older or vulnerable people and that gives us some concern.”

Ms O’Neill and First Minister Arlene Foster have not resumed joint media appearances after the row over the Sinn Fein woman’s attendance among crowds at the funeral of veteran republican Bobby Storey.

Ms O’Neill said of that: “We’re both on-message, we’re both delivering the same message.”

Ms Foster said she wants to see “acknowledgement” from Ms O’Neill and Sinn Fein of “damage” to messaging over coronavirus caused by her attendance at the funeral.

“If that acknowledgement was there, I think we could then move forward and try to give the message out again. But at the moment there isn’t that acknowledgement that confidence was dented and the messaging was damaged,” she said.