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 5787094

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. We have heard a lot of hot air in the debate from the Benches to my left and certainly from Sinn Féin MLAs who say that they cannot live with or abide an Orangeman about the place. What they have spoken about is some parallel universe that they live in where reality and perception do not meet. They are simply on another planet. They have shown the same intolerance: they cannot abide unionism, loyalism or Orangeism walking down the Garvaghy Road for 14 minutes.
There is no tolerance and no respect.
I agree that the new Ireland lies in tatters, along with, I would go as far as to say, the Executive. An Executive who cannot survive the enforcement of law when republicans simply do not like it or agree with it do not deserve to survive, and we have a peace process that would suffer catastrophic long-term consequences if 35 men dared to walk down the Garvaghy Road. That is not an Executive worth propping up. What we have witnessed was Sinn Féin promoting Mr Mac Cionnaith, its new cheerleader. You have promoted him to be the new chief constable of the Garvaghy Road. Let us have a read about Mr Mac Cionnaith. On 12 May 1982, the 'Belfast Telegraph' reported:
"Jail for gunman who held family A 24-year-old Portadown man, found guilty of holding a Lurgan family hostage last year, was jailed for six years at Belfast Crown Court yesterday. Brendan McKenna, of Obins Avenue, was convicted of carrying a firearm with intent, false imprisonment, and hijacking on August 5, 1981. He was jailed for six years for the firearms offence, for five years for false imprisonment, and for two years for hijacking. The sentences will run concurrently. The court was told that two masked men burst into the house in Churchill Park, Lurgan, and demanded the keys of the family car. A gun was produced and one of the men made off in the car while McKenna held the family of three hostage for almost three hours. The family's ordeal ended when a policeman called at their door to investigate, after the hijacked car was left unattended in the centre of the town."
That is the man whom Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the dissidents are taking their lead from; that is the man whom they have promoted to be the chief constable of Garvaghy Road; that is the man who bombed the heart out of Portadown and now stands up pretending to be some champion for its citizens. For the past number of weeks, what have we seen happen on the Garvaghy Road, apart from mob rule reigning supreme? We had Sinn Féin and Ms O'Neill's bedfellow, the IRA chief of staff, directing operations. He was directing operations, and Sinn Féin MLAs were following suit. We also had renditions of 'My Old Man's a Provo', which includes these lyrics:
"My dad has got me worried, I think he's goin' soft There's half a ton of fertiliser stowed up in our loft 'Are you gonna be a farmer, dad?' I asked him just for fun He said 'Don't be an eejit, pass the coffee grinder son!'"
That is the type of people who have been entertaining Sinn Féin and the SDLP over the past number of weeks. Do you know what? Not one of them has even blushed in the Chamber tonight at that being the people whom they have been standing with: a mob making a joke of La Mon, Bloody Friday, Enniskillen, Claudy and the countless other cases across our Province when Provo bombs packed with ground-up fertiliser blew people in Northern Ireland into eternity. They even had the cash-and-carry bomber and failed hunger striker, Pat Sheehan. His hypocrisy knows no bounds. He stands up to lecture unionism on what is right and what is wrong. Pat, sit this one out. You are nothing but a hypocrite, and you should not be able to lecture anyone. When we look across the Benches, we see Gerry Kelly. Oh, he has left; he has run away. He must be using his on-the-run letter. He is somebody who packs the Sinn Féin Benches. Those are the people with whom we have to put up in the Chamber. Mr Kelly served two life sentences for his part in the IRA bombing campaign in London, including the Old Bailey bombing. We have a Principal Deputy Speaker who compared the Orange Order to the Ku Klux Klan. What does that do for good relations? Those are the sorts of people whom Sinn Féin packs its Benches with. Those are the sorts of people who show hypocrisy when they stand up and lecture others. However, the one who takes the biscuit today is none other than Policing Board member Deirdre Hargey, the woman who hid in the toilet with 200 other republicans and nationalists and looked the other way when Robert McCartney was murdered. Shame on you; not a bit of remorse comes with you. We move on to the Alliance Party. It is good that Mr Tennyson and co joined us for most of the debate. Some Alliance Party Members have sat in for all of it. There was no mention from Mr Tennyson of the 344 Orangemen who were murdered at the hands of the IRA. Throughout Mr Tennyson's contribution, the boxing gloves stayed on. He does not dare go against his masters in Sinn Féin. He lectures us. He says that higher standards apply to us as lawmakers, yet he will troop through the Lobbies with the lawbreakers tonight. Many of the MLAs who were sitting on Garvaghy Road on the Sunday turned up here on the Monday and trooped through the Lobbies to vote for his Conversion Practices Bill. He is glad of their support. The hypocrisy of the Alliance Party knows no bounds. What of our Justice Minister? Where is she? That is a good question. Maybe, if we start talking about the Chief Constable, she will hide behind, "That is an operational issue" — she dare not get involved. I have news for you, Justice Minister: when the Chief Constable moved from the realm of law into the realm of political enforcement and political appeasement, you, Justice Minister, have a duty to remind him that he is here to be apolitical and to rule without fear or favour. The Chief Constable needs put back in his place to concentrate on upholding the rule of law. He has derogated and shied away from that. He has pandered to the mob. He has pandered to Sinn Féin. He has pandered to the threats of violence. From whom? They were certainly not from the 35 Orangemen, who have been dignified and respectful from the beginning. The same cannot be said of Members on the Benches to my left. They have upped the ante, whipped up hysteria, broken the law and led the mob to hide from their own failings. Of the many Members from the Sinn Féin Benches who have spoken today, not one could confirm that they supported law and order. We heard Liz Kimmins have the audacity to welcome — welcome — the court decision on the A5, even though, for two weeks, Sinn Féin derided the court decision and the Parades Commission decision to lawfully grant 35 men the right to return home after 28 years. We heard from Ms Sheerin. My goodness, Ms Sheerin likes to get exercised when she speaks. She only gets excited when it is something to do with Gaza or her pan-nationalist republican agenda. That is her interest. That is what she goes after people for. That is what fires her on. She needs to question some of the speeches that she has made and the hatred and incitement that she has spewed from those Benches when she has got to her feet. She is in no position to lecture unionism. Now we come to the inevitable conclusion. We have had our debate — we have had our say — but, unfortunately, regardless of how Members vote in the Lobbies tonight, the absurd rules of this place will ensure that the motion fails. It will fail because it needs Sinn Féin to vote for it to pass. How can that be democratic in 2026?
What are we going to do about it? What will happen? The "First Minister for all" stood up to lecture us. She tells us that this is 2026, but she always refers to the past. A number of weeks ago, Michelle O'Neill was happy to stand at the graveside of Thomas McElwee, a terrorist and murderer, with not a thought for the mother of his victim or for the children of Yvonne Dunlop, yet she comes to the House to say that she is "First Minister for all". You are certainly not my First Minister, and you never will be.
Oh, she is certainly not. She is not the First Minister for the Orangemen; she is only the First Minister for those whom she wants to represent. She has failed her test time and again. We have heard from all sides of the House and we have our TikTok videos, but what are we going to do when the debate finishes? I turn my attention to the DUP, and I do that for one reason: it is the only party that has it in its gift to remove Michelle O'Neill from office. Where are the profound consequences that we were told about? In 2007, the DUP told the unionist people that:
"The DUP holds to its long standing position that there can only be an agreement involving Sinn Féin when there has been delivery by the republican movement, tested and proved over a credible period, in terms of support for the PSNI, the Courts and the rule of law".
Nineteen years on from making that declaration, is there really a unionist in the House who can say that Sinn Féin supports the police and the rule of law? I do not think there is, and, if there is, you are certainly kidding yourself. After what we have listened to tonight in the Chamber, would anyone dare suggest that that was anything more than a con? If it is and if you hold true to what you said in 2007, there is an onus on you to do something about it. Some £190 million has been poured into good relations. When you ask what the definition of "good relations" is, there is not even an agreed position in the Executive Office on what it is. Some £190 million has been poured into the good relations and Communities in Transition pots, and all it took for the mask and the whole facade to slip was 35 men to be permitted to walk down the Garvaghy Road.
I am happy to give way to Mr O'Toole.
Good relations can exist only when two equal sides want to buy into it. Given what we have seen from you, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit, there are no good relations, because there is no tolerance for 35 men to walk down the Garvaghy Road. Fourteen minutes is all that it would have taken for the parade to pass. It would have taken one minute to pass any point along the Garvaghy Road at 8.00 am on a Sunday.
I will give way one more time.
Mr O'Toole lost me at "respect" when he does not respect the rule of law. On that basis, Mr O'Toole, yes, you said it, but, when you do not have respect for the rule of law, that is where this place absolutely plunges into the gutter.
If Mr Carroll has any evidence that I was at any protests, he can go through the archives and produce it. I have no problem standing to the law and order of this country. When we consider all that has been said tonight, I do not believe that one person outside the Chamber, whether unionist or nationalist, would really see a difference if this place did not exist. It is failing, is dysfunctional and does not deliver for them. The other argument that I hear from the unionist Benches is, "Oh, we shouldn't leave Labour in charge", but they never complete that sentence and say, "By the inaction of the DUP, it is leaving Sinn Féin in charge". Mr Robinson said that bringing down Stormont would not get the Orangemen home. That is what he claims. When I look at the Chief Constable's claims that the Executive could have come down if the rule of law had been upheld, I wonder how he reached that conclusion. He must have known that the DUP was not prepared to do anything. He must have known that, when the rights of unionists and Orangemen were being trampled over, there was no fear of these failing institutions falling. That is a dereliction of duty by Mr Robinson, and he should have been prepared that, when the court case was won — won a number of times, and, indeed, won in court today — there had to be political consequences for what we have seen. It might have been a Labour Government Minister who signed the piece of paper on Friday night to stop the Portadown district from returning home for the first time in 28 years, but it was the very people who the DUP shared power with, and continues to share power with, who made that happen. It was the confidence that London had the DUP where it wanted it, with no backbone and no self-respect, that ensured that the Chief Constable put pressure on the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State made that announcement. I close with this. Ms O'Neill talks about it being 2026, yet she refers to history. Miss Hargey was able to cite things from the 1970s and 1980s but cannot remember back to January 2005. At what point will they stop glorifying terrorism and eulogising people such as Thomas McElwee, who robbed three children of their young mother? I hope that the words of Geoffrey Dunlop — "What about my mummy?" — ring out around the Chamber. Think about that. Geoffrey Dunlop. "What about my mummy's life?" Those are the people that this First Minister of lawlessness chooses to eulogise, and she dares to stand up and say that she is First Minister for all. It is time that the deputy First Minister resigned and took Ms O'Neill with her.

2,429 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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