Member's statement: Sinn Féin: Provisional IRA Influence
Member's statement by Mr Timothy Gaston on .
- MLA
- Mr Timothy Gaston
- Party at the time
- Traditional Unionist Voice
- Date
- 19 October 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Sinn Féin: Provisional IRA Influence
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5795359
Read the official Assembly record
Text
This morning's revelation in the High Court should have profound consequences for the Assembly. The feelings of the Provisional IRA — an illegal terrorist organisation — have been found to have influenced police thinking when it came to Drumcree. Let us be in no doubt about what that means. Last week, the Assembly marked 20 years since the St Andrews Agreement, a deal that was sold to unionists by the DUP on the basis that the IRA was gone and Sinn Féin supported the police and the courts. We knew, when we debated that motion, that Sinn Féin's support for the police and the courts was conditional on Sinn Féin getting its own way. After today's revelations, it is beyond question that the IRA not only continues to influence Sinn Féin but is a factor in decisions made by our Chief Constable. If the Provisional IRA influences police decisions, does anyone in the House seriously believe that it does not influence the decisions made by O'Neill, who regularly celebrates its barbarity? The questions for this institution and particularly for the DUP as the largest party and the leading party for unionism are profound. Will they continue to sustain the First Minister of lawlessness in office, knowing not only that she broke the law but that the Provisional IRA remains in place? I heard Gavin Robinson say that, if the DUP resigned the deputy First Minister, that would leave three lawbreakers in office, and the DUP would be happy with that. Let me remind Gavin Robinson and the DUP that the TUV would never have broken its word to the unionist people. We would never have entered into partnership with Sinn Féin in a protocol-implementing, Union-dismantling Executive. Having got Northern Ireland into this mess because of your lies to the unionist electorate, you feel that it would be better to have three lawbreakers in government than the four that you seem content to prop up and sustain. It would be better to show that you have some shred of decency about this than none.
It would be better to evict Michelle O'Neill, the First Minister of lawlessness, than to maintain O'Neill, the PIRA puppet, in office. Remaining in office continues to give Michelle O'Neill a character reference.
Is that the legacy —
— that you want to take to the electorate in May?
392 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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