Debate contribution: Exclusion of the First Minister from Office under Section 30 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998
Debate contribution by Mrs Sinéad Ennis on .
- MLA
- Mrs Sinéad Ennis
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- 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 5786792
Read the official Assembly record
Text
Another bizarre twist to the debacle and a ploy straight out of the Trump playbook is to accuse your opponent of that which you are doing yourself. The DUP has convinced itself that Sinn Féin started the dispute in a clandestine attempt to goad it into collapsing the Assembly and the Executive. Sinn Féin did not reopen the Drumcree dispute. Sinn Féin did not ask for 28 years of peace to be threatened. Sinn Féin did not make the Orange Order apply year after year to force its sectarian hate march through a community that does not want it. The ones who are doing the goading are the Orange Order; extreme loyalist elements; and people inside and outside the Chamber, including unelected mouthpieces, who do not want peace and are afraid of the future. Mr Gaston is not here, but I raised this point with him in Committee last week: if Mr Gaston, Jim Allister and the TUV do not want power-sharing, they should leave. If Mr Gaston does not want to be here, he should leave. Nobody is making him stay here. In fact, as I said to him last week — here he comes — Sinn Féin has a really great abstentionist policy. We are happy to share it with you, Mr Gaston, because, clearly, you need it.
We need to get to the heart of all of this. Over the past number of weeks, people across this society have rightly been asking pertinent questions. Why has political unionism surrendered to unelected extremists? Why has it capitulated to Jamie Bryson, who has yet again walked it into another unmitigated disaster? Here is my theory on why it is happening, and I do not think that I am too far wrong: the ground has fundamentally shifted under your feet, and political unionism simply cannot cope. Time and time again, people have talked about "no alternative". Maybe Mr Burrows would like to answer some of these questions. Was there any alternative to the pogroms that burned my family and thousands of others like them out of Lisburn in the 1920s? Was there any alternative to civil rights being denied? Was there any alternative to one-party unionist misrule? Was there any alternative to Ulster Resistance, the red berets and DUP gunrunning? Was there any alternative to internment, shoot to kill or collusion? Was there any alternative to nationalists being beaten off the streets? Spare us all the faux outrage. The DUP has no plan for the future. That is why you are so obsessed with dragging us all back to the past. You have absolutely zero interest in these institutions and using them to improve people's lives. You are devoid of any ideas or legislation of your own, so you have engaged in an attempt to thwart and block any progress that others in the Assembly might want to make. Then came the fleadh, which showed the world just how much Belfast and the North have changed. It united people and communities in a way that we have not seen before, and that has scared the life out of all of you. No matter how much you resist it, the conversation about a united Ireland is raging all around you. It is my firm belief that resurrecting and reopening the wound that is Drumcree was borne out of fear. It is the actions of people who are desperate to turn the clock back to a time when nationalists and Catholics were expected to know their place. To top it all off, you simply cannot cope with how gracious
Michelle O'Neill has been as First Minister. Time and time again, she has reached out the hand of friendship and respect, trying to build bridges and move things forward. That respect has never been reciprocated. Instead of acknowledging her efforts, you chose to attack the person who continues to extend the hand. That is what is behind the absolute frenzied attacks on Michelle O'Neill. We are one step away from MAGA chants of, "Lock her up". That is where we are headed. Let us be honest about it: you are not angry because Michelle O'Neill is not a First Minister for all; you are angry because she is. These past few weeks will prove to be a defining moment for the DUP as it has sought to use Drumcree to distract from the scandals and sleaze enveloping the party. It is also a reminder to those of us who believe that a new Ireland is possible and that the change that once seemed impossible is now irreversible. There will never be a return to the dark days of the past, where one tradition stood above the other. Unelected agitators can jump up and down all they like, but there will be no trampling over, or through, nationalist communities. Those days are gone.
809 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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