It is not surprising that a briefing document presented to Northern Ireland’s new health minister in January 2020 contained only two paragraphs about emergency planning for a pandemic, a senior Stormont civil servant has said.
Richard Pengelly, former permanent secretary of the Department of Health, told the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that at the time, industrial action by health workers in the region was the “number one issue” for incoming minister Robin Swann.
