Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald has described the cross-community veto by the DUP to reject a two-week extension to the current Covid-19 restrictions in Northern Ireland as "shameful, disgraceful, depressing".
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Speaking on RTÉ's Today with Claire Byrne Mary, Ms McDonald said it is "shocking that the DUP have turned a public health issue into an orange versus green issue".
"If people are going to reach for a tit for tat and delve into the past in a most unedifying way, to look for cover for doing the wrong thing in the present, I think that's pretty lamentable," she said.
Ms McDonald said recent events in Stormont "give a glimpse" of the challenges of a five-party administration.
She said any views expressed by the Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Michelle O'Neill have been "bound by the medical advice".
Ms McDonald said the level of Covid-19 in Northern Ireland is "extremely worrying".
She expressed serious concern about the pressure the level of the virus is putting on the hospital capacity there.
"There has been a level of control and there has been a level of suppressing the virus but it's still worrying. More worrying, is that the hospitals is in the North are now at 100% capacity and slightly more," Ms McDonald said.
She urged the Executive at Stormont "to listen very carefully to the chief medical officer to the scientific advice".
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, meanwhile, said trying to adopt an all-island approach to Covid-19 is very "challenging" and the "numbers are worryingly high", he added.
Speaking to RTÉ's News at One, Mr Martin said the DUP's use of the cross-community veto was "wrong".
"You cannot be using the cross-community veto in the context of a public health initiative that is not what it was designed for," he said.
"And I was very disappointed to see that. I don't think it should have happened."
The deaths of another 11 people in Northern Ireland with Covid-19 were announced today, taking the death toll to 1,141. Another 607 new cases of the virus were also confirmed.
Earlier, Alliance Party leader Naomi Long said she has never in her 20 years of politics felt "more depressed and dispirited" with the state of affairs in Northern Ireland than this week.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Long said it was "shameful and embarrassing" to witness the tactics being played out as the Executive tries to govern in the middle of a pandemic.
Ms Long said anyone with an ounce of "sense or sanity" must have reconsidered their participation in an Executive which has failed the people of Northern Ireland over the last seven days.
She said the cross-community veto was designed to protect minorities, but instead it resulted in the largest party in Northern Ireland voting against the Health Minister's proposal to extend Covid-19 restrictions by two weeks.
"The degree of perversion of the original intent of that protection is laid bare for all to see," she said.
Ms Long said the pandemic does not affect one community more than another.
"I just cannot understand why there was any need to deploy that veto this week. It was completely inappropriate.
"We have a lot of work to do to repair the damage done... and not find ourselves in that same position again."
Ms Long said if there was another such debacle, she did not think the Executive will be sustainable.
The DUP's use of the cross-community veto mechanism this week was a 'perversion of democracy', says Alliance party leader Naomi Long pic.twitter.com/nxgFOeUfxG
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) November 13, 2020
Ulster Unionist Party leader Steve Aiken said that for anyone who wants to see Northern Ireland succeed and the Stormont Executive to work well, this has not been a good week.
Also speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, he said: "This political posturing and grandstanding by DUP hasn't done anybody any good."
He described the DUP as "disgraceful" for not agreeing to the extension and letting it come to a "cliff edge".
Mr Aiken said it took until yesterday for the DUP to realise that restrictions had to be continued and they have ended up with a compromise deal with a one-week extension.
Mr Aiken said the UUP and other political parties are led by the science and very good guidance given by the Chief Medical Officer.
"We realise we have a significant problem. We were looking for a two-week extension," and said he hopes the one week extension is still going to have a "significant effect".
