LISTEN: PSNI 'cannot be sole enforcers' of Covid restrictions

By Brett Campbell

The PSNI alone can not enforce lockdown restrictions in Northern Ireland. 

That's the warning from the chairman of the Police Federation Northern Ireland who is calling for crystal clear laws that protect human rights. 

Mark Lindsay says everyone has to play a part in curbing the spread of Covid19. 

''The entire society has to play their part in this,'' he said. 

''First off,  legislation has to be precise - police cannot operate in an area where there is a lot of gray legislation.''

The head of the group which represents rank and file officers says the police has a big role to play but cannot be the ''sole enforcers''. 

''We also have to look at councils and their capacity for letting people do things on council property and also on commercial premises and business premises. 

''Shopping centres and supermarkets also have to play their part.'' 

Stay-at-home advice is to be put into legislation from midnight on Thursday, with additional powers being given to the PSNI to enforce the measures.

Household mixing will be reduced to just one other household or social bubble.

Speaking after the Executive meeting last night, Ms O’Neill said: “The message will be stay at home.

“This will provide additional powers to the PSNI, for example to be able to return people to their homes when they actually come out for reasons that are not allowed under the reasons that you can actually leave your home.

“There are also additional restrictions to household mixing. So, in private homes and gardens, both indoor and outdoor gatherings will be restricted to members of one household, or a member of your support bubble.

“There are obviously some exemptions that are for people who live in homes so those things will carry on.

“Outdoor and indoor gatherings will be restricted. The current position is that 15 people can meet outside that will be reduced to six people. Again, that’s a necessary intervention at this time.”

Meanwhile Northern Ireland’s chief scientific adviser has warned that we all need to follow tough new rules carefully to prevent the spread of highly infectious variants of coronavirus,

Professor Ian Young said Covid-19 would probably always be with us and repeated rounds of vaccination were likely to be needed.

At the moment he is not concerned about resistance to the vaccine from the mutations they know about.

He said “structural” changes to the virus were of more concern as they were more likely to develop resistance to vaccination.

There was more uncertainty about the South African variant as there were greater levels of structural changes within that.

He attributed the rise in infection rates mainly to increased socialising before fresh lockdown measures were brought in after Christmas rather than the virus mutation prevalent in southern England.

He told Stormont’s Health Committee:  “The existing mitigations need to be adhered to particularly carefully to reduce transmission of the virus.”