Debate contribution: Exclusion of the First Minister from Office under Section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 12 October 2026.

MLA: Mr Timothy Gaston
Party at the time: Traditional Unionist Voice
Date: 12 October 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Assembly Business
Heading: Exclusion of the First Minister from Office under Section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5786591

Text

I beg to move
Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Northern Ireland is at a crossroads. As the public watch on to see what happens in the House tonight, it will be a defining moment for confidence in the Executive. If we cast our minds back to the events in Portadown over the past number of weeks, we see that, ultimately, there was a contest between the lawful and the lawless. On one side stood men who had spent almost three decades complying with determinations that were, they believed, fundamentally unjust. They challenged those determinations through the courts, and they won. They applied through the proper legal process and received a lawful determination allowing 35 Orangemen to return home. They defended that determination in the High Court and the Court of Appeal, and again they won. Their opponents challenged that determination. Today, I am glad to say, the Court of Appeal unanimously dismissed that challenge as unarguable. Every avenue available in a democratic society was followed. On the other side stood those who acted as though the law did not apply to them. Those seeking to use the courts were met with threats and, sadly, intimidation. Representatives of Portadown district faced vile abuse outside the High Court. A young barrister required a police escort to and from the court. Portadown district's original legal team said that it could no longer continue because it felt threatened, as did its staff. Members of the House, including Policing Board member Miss Hargey, who, famously, must have been in the same toilet cubicle as 200-odd other republicans when the murder of Robert McCartney took place, played their part in whipping up the mob and making sure that those outside the court who were standing for the rule of law were intimidated and abused. Every citizen must be able to access the courts without intimidation. If people are deterred from bringing a case because of threats, the rule of law is being undermined in practice, whatever the words on paper may say. Ministers should have been unequivocal in defending that principle; indeed, that is what the Pledge of Office says. However, weeks after those events, the Justice Minister has yet to utter a word in the House about the vile abuse directed at Portadown district's legal team. Had that abuse been directed at republicans, you could not have held the Chamber doors against Naomi Long bursting in to bring an urgent statement to the House. You do not have to agree with everything that Carla Lockhart or Jamie Bryson believes to say that the sectarian and vile abuse that both have faced, including death threats, needs to be called out. That should happen to no law-abiding citizen in our country. Once the courts had ruled, those who pledged to support the rule of law should have accepted what was laid out before them, but what did the Sinn Féin Ministers do? They blocked the road, defied the determination and ignored the courts. Instead of enforcing the law, the Chief Constable sought the intervention of the Secretary of State, who capitulated to the mob and reversed the determination. Among those who participated in the protest were the Sinn Féin Ministers named in the motions before us this evening: Ms O'Neill, the First Minister of lawlessness and of "no alternative", who does not want an Orangeman about the place; the Economy Minister; the Finance Minister; and the Infrastructure Minister. The central issue before the House is this: if a determination can be set aside simply because republican protesters object to it, what confidence can any loyalist, Orangeman or unionist have in the impartial administration of justice in Northern Ireland? If court rulings can be ignored when they become politically inconvenient for Sinn Féin, what message does that send about the rule of law in Northern Ireland? The reality is that many ordinary loyalists watched the events in Portadown and reached the simple conclusion that there is one law for republicans and another for everyone else. They saw the lawful determination, which was upheld by the courts, being trashed by the unlawful obstruction of the Garvaghy Road. They saw Ministers from the Executive standing shoulder to shoulder with those who seek to frustrate the implementation of the law; and they saw them being led by the Portadown bomber, Breandán Mac Cionnaith. No amount of spin can counter those facts. Members are not being asked whether they support or oppose Orange marches or whether they agree or disagree with the determination. The question in front of the House is much simpler: can Ministers who swore to uphold the rule of law participate in and support actions designed to prevent that law from being enforced? If the answer is yes, the Pledge of Office that each Minister has taken is meaningless. If the answer is yes, legal rights exist only until republicans decide otherwise. They do not want to follow them, and they thumb their noses at unionists who do. If the answer to that question is, indeed, yes, the Executive are signalling that organised opposition outweighs the authority of the courts and the obligations of government. The public have spent years being told that the rule of law must be respected and that court decisions must be obeyed: those principles cannot apply only when it suits republicans. The rule of law must apply equally to everyone, or it means nothing at all. It has been suggested to me that the PSNI's calculations around forcing the parade through were influenced by the belief that there were firearms on the Garvaghy Road. Tellingly, the Chief Constable has had nothing to say on that subject. He needs to be clear on that point. Let us look at what he has been clear on. In explaining why he sought the Secretary of State's intervention, the Chief Constable referred to the risk of:
"catastrophic long term consequences for trust ... in policing ... the ... Executive and the peace process."
Shame on the Chief Constable, Jon Boutcher. His role should be non-political and focused solely on protecting and upholding the rule of law. An Executive who cannot survive the enforcement of the law when republicans say so are an Executive not worth having. What are the catastrophic events and long-term catastrophic failures? If this place were gone, I do not think that people would even notice. Before the House are four motions of exclusion for lawbreakers — lawless Ministers. Simply opening the trapdoor on the First Minister is not enough; this place needs to send the signal that, if a Minister steps outside the rule of law, the police should go after them and issue full law enforcement, but there also have to be political consequences. It is on that point that I look to the DUP and ask this: what are you going to do about it? It is about time that the deputy First Minister was removed from office to send a signal —
— and push Michelle O'Neill out of office.

1,170 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Awaiting analysis

This record has not been analysed yet. It is not counted in any total until it has been assessed.

Disagree with this assessment?

Classifications can be challenged. A person reviews every challenge, and any change is recorded publicly above with its reason.

Challenge this classification