Debate contribution: Exclusion of the First Minister from Office under Section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998
Debate contribution by Mrs Diane Dodds on .
- MLA
- Mrs Diane Dodds
- Party at the time
- Democratic Unionist Party
- 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 5786762
Read the official Assembly record
Text
It is hard to start after the kind of gaslighting of unionism that we have just heard. Nevertheless, the debate is really important for the House to have, because the rule of law is fundamental to any society. At the heart of the debate is this question: can lawmakers be lawbreakers? That is what is at the heart of the debate. This afternoon, we saw an extraordinary situation unfold in Northern Ireland. The Court of Appeal has ruled that, on all grounds, the Garvaghy residents' challenge to the Parades Commission determination was unarguable. That is an extraordinary situation. It means that the legal position remains that the determination is valid but that the parade has been banned by the Secretary of State on the advice of the Chief Constable. For many who are looking in on the debate and at what has happened over the past couple of weeks, it is hard not to conclude that the lawbreakers and the mob have got their way and that politicians in Westminster and the Chief Constable facilitated that. There are plenty of questions for the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable, but, today, people in my community and those in Portadown whom I represent are asking, "Did the Secretary of State and the Chief Constable know about the Court of Appeal's decision in advance and therefore rush through their statements and those measures on Friday night?". We deserve answers to that from the Secretary of State. I will make it clear that, for this party, support for those officers on the ground who have stood and taken abuse after abuse at the top of the Garvaghy Road and so on is unequivocal. However, we also have to ask important questions of the Chief Constable, who is tasked with upholding the law but unable and seemingly unwilling to police a lawful determination, as was confirmed again this afternoon. In his statement at the weekend, he indicated that there was the prospect of:
"serious injury, disorder and ... wider contagion ... across Northern Ireland."
The Chief Constable owes us all an answer. Who is threatening the violence? It is not the Orange Order, members of which have remained peaceful and urged their supporters to uphold the law.
The Member is absolutely right. I will come on to the whipping up of the mob, particularly on the Garvaghy Road and outside the courts, where I, Carla Lockhart and others experienced it and where young legal representatives had to get police escorts to come into court, such was the threat of violence. That is down to Michelle O'Neill, Mary Lou and everyone else who stood outside the courts and engaged in it. The Chief Constable owes us answers, and it is important that he provides them. The Secretary of State also owes us answers. What exactly were the threats that Sinn Féin used about the political institutions that caused him to run away and make the decision that he did, a decision that was never made over many years and many disputes over parading? We need those answers, and the people whom I represent demand them. A free and democratic society must have at its core respect for the law. When Ministers in the Assembly took office, they pledged to uphold the law, respect the courts and support the police. Those rules must apply to all. No one is entitled, not even the First Minister for what is right — whatever the heck that means — to choose which laws she supports and which laws she does not. The law-abiding people of Northern Ireland have witnessed a terrible whipping up of the mob and a terrible blocking of the Garvaghy Road in which Sinn Féin and SDLP politicians are complicit. Those acts were led by dissident republicans and Breandán Mac Cionnaith and were directed by the Provos. Pat Sheehan tells us all about leadership in unionism, but listen up: there is no doubt that Sinn Féin has just rediscovered the Garvaghy Road. It had to ask Breandán Mac Cionnaith's permission to come on to the Garvaghy Road, and now it is marching to the dissidents' drum. What does that say about Sinn Féin's leadership? Fail. In doing that whipping up, what Sinn Féin has done is sectarianise and demonise the debate. It has demonised lawful members of the Orange Order: people who said that they wanted to uphold the law and went to the courts to get the law upheld. That is sectarianism, but then, it is in Sinn Féin's DNA, is it not, with its support for the criminal and sectarian campaign of the IRA. People out there are being gaslighted today, and they know who is doing it. The one thing that is absolutely for sure in all this is that all the talk about a new Ireland has been exposed for what it is: empty words. It is an echo chamber: people talking to themselves, making promises that no one — no one — expects them to fulfil. It is clear that anyone with even a hint of a British identity knows how they would be treated in the new Ireland. In fact, it all comes down to "not a Prod about the place".
872 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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