Debate contribution: Jeffrey Donaldson: Further Revelations

Debate contribution by Mrs Naomi Long on 29 June 2026.

MLA

Mrs Naomi Long

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

29 June 2026

Type

Debate contribution (made as a minister)

Business

Matter of the Day

Heading

Jeffrey Donaldson: Further Revelations

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5644488

Read the official Assembly record

Text

This is about victims: two women who had the courage to come forward. I trust the fact that they got a measure of justice last week will encourage others to come forward and give them confidence in the belief that, irrespective of who their abuser is or how historical the abuse is, there can still be justice for victims. Since that, it has become apparent that senior members of the DUP were made aware of other potential victims. While it should always be for an individual victim to decide whether to pursue a criminal prosecution, that does not absolve those who knew of those cases of their safeguarding responsibilities. Some of those people are still in high office in politics, including as Speaker of the Assembly. Questions about what was known, when it was known and what actions were taken must be asked and answered transparently. From the 'Spotlight' programme, it appears that, by people's own admission, no action was taken in those cases. There are questions not only for political parties but religious and faith-based organisations. Serious disclosures were made to people in pastoral positions, and, again, nothing was done to safeguard the victims or other vulnerable people. It is long past time that faith-based counselling was properly regulated and subject to the same standards as other counselling, including in respect of safeguarding. This also raises again the issue that relationships and sexuality education in Northern Ireland is fundamentally flawed. The fact that a victim came forward and said that could not even find the words to describe what had been done to her because she was not aware that it was as wrong as it was represents a failure of relationships and sexuality education. Jeffrey Donaldson is not the first and will not be the last closeted gay or homosexual person to have felt the need to live a closeted life because of the sanctimonious, puritanical and judgemental environment that has been fostered in this place by politicians and religious institutions. That is separate and distinct, however, from accusations of sexual assault and paedophilia. Let us never conflate the two, because that trope has been used to damage many people whose sexuality is private and their own business and who are entirely engaged with consenting adults, as is right. We cannot create and the DUP should not contribute to the kind of repressive environment where people are fearful of being open about their sexual orientation on the basis that, even when they come to the House —

— appalling things are said and done —

— on a homophobic basis and are rarely challenged.

436 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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