Covid Inquiry: What have we learned after three weeks in Belfast?

On day one and in opening statements the plight of care home residents, owners, staff and families was laid bare.

The inquiry heard how older people had become the first casualties of the pandemic and had been “forgotten” about.

The commissioner for older people’s description of a sense of “hospitals being cleared of old people and sent into care homes, not tested” was chilling.

Eddie Lynch said the action by the Department of Health was “reckless”.

Over the next three weeks a stream of questions examined plans around protecting the vulnerable in advance of, or during, the pandemic.