Debate contribution: Paramilitarism, Criminality and Organised Crime
Debate contribution by Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly on .
- MLA
- Mrs Emma Little-Pengelly
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- Date
- 5 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Paramilitarism, Criminality and Organised Crime
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5774140
Read the official Assembly record
Text
It is absolutely clear that what we have seen over the past week has appalled many people across Northern Ireland. They have seen a party that demands equality and then claims an exemption for itself. That does not work. The idea that it is somehow above the law while everybody else has to be subject to the law does not work, regardless of your view of the Orange Order or the parade. What is disgraceful, and what has appalled people, is the damage that has been done to the post of First Minister by a First Minister who stood there to defy the law. She defied the law in the face of not just Portadown Orangemen but a decision by the Court of Appeal and the PSNI, all of which made it clear that the Parades Commission decision was as it was and that the law should be upheld. That is disgraceful conduct. What is absolutely clear is that, this week, Sinn Féin has been dancing to the beat of the dissident drum, time and again. That is disgraceful.
179 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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