Arlene Foster on attack after surviving confidence vote

The North’s first minister has launched a blistering attack against political rivals and the media as she defended her handling of a botched green energy scheme.

DUP leader Arlene Foster denounced opposition parties as “irrelevant and impotent” as she responded to an Assembly motion of no confidence in her.

“For almost two weeks I have listened on an almost daily basis to lies presented as facts, the truth distorted out of all recognition, and a public narrative created and relentlessly pursued which bears no relationship to reality,” she said.