Debate contribution: Commitment to the Proper Use of Public Moneys

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 28 January 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

28 January 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Commitment to the Proper Use of Public Moneys

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4764194

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. All Members received a copy of the report of the review into the Sinn Féin scandal, and pinned to the front of the report was a letter from the Chief Executive of the Assembly. The letter sets the tone for how the powers that be in this Building would like the review to be viewed. It is claimed that, while there has been commentary and speculation on these issues, it was important that these matters were considered in a robust way, which followed due process and examined the evidence. Clearly, the review report is designed to be the last word on this scandal, after which we can all move on, but is that the case? I contend that it is indisputable that this review fails on its own terms. It did not consider the matter in a robust way, it did not follow due process, and it did not examine the evidence. That, sadly, is par for the course when it comes to Stormont. Nothing that I say in this debate should be viewed as personal criticism of the Chief Executive or the review report's author, the Assembly's head of Legal Services. The desire of everyone in this Building to prioritise the process over the proper use of public money and, indeed, child protection has been obvious. Why do I say that it does not consider the matters in a robust way? Because, as acknowledged in paragraph 81 of the review report:

"This was a paper-based exercise. It quickly gave rise to the difficulty of how one was to establish the nature of the work carried out by Members’ employees in the review period."

Why was it a purely paper-based exercise? Why were the key figures in the affair not brought in and interviewed? I see nothing in the terms of reference to limit the head of Legal Services to approaching his task in that way. Frankly, appointing an insider from the Assembly system was the wrong call — assuming, of course, that one wanted to get to the truth of the matter. The mindset underlying everything in the review is spelled out clearly in paragraph 117:

"Ms O’Neill has been a Northern Ireland Minister since 2011, becoming dFM in 2020 and First Minister in 2024, in which period there is no record of any complaint under the Ministerial Code of Conduct or Assembly Members’ Code of Conduct against her being upheld."

The review report's author might as well have added, "And who am I to question her integrity now or make a finding against her?". The truth is that there was plenty of evidence to lead one to conclude that Sinn Féin, including Ms O'Neill, was using public funds meant for constituency offices in order to fund its press operation. When Ms O'Neill addressed the House on 7 October, reading from a prepared statement, she said:

"The issues that have arisen over recent days result primarily from the actions of two former press officers" — [Official Report (Hansard), 7 October 2024, p42, col 2].

Given the level of controversy and press attention that the matter attracted, one would imagine that every word in that statement was carefully chosen, yet, in paragraph 81, the review report claims:

"The suggestion that Mr McGinley and Mr McMonagle were not carrying out work for the Members by which they were employed, but were carrying out work for a political party, has a limited evidential base — essentially it follows from media reports and a statement in the Assembly by the First Minister in which they are referred to as ‘press officers’."

Given the wonderful character reference for Ms O'Neill from the head of Legal Services, one would think that an appearance by her in the House in which she described Mr McGinley as a press officer would be the end of the matter, but no. The review report's author cannot avoid the fact that one of the individuals described by the First Minister as a press officer — Mr McGinley — was employed via a fund that was intended to cover constituency office costs. That flies in the face of the part of the 'Assembly Members (Salaries and Expenses) Determination (Northern Ireland) 2016' dealing with office and staffing costs and allowances. It states:

"the purpose of this Part is not to – (a) allow political parties to benefit from staff costs incurred by members, or (b) allow resources made available to members for the exercise of functions as members being used for other political activities."

From the review report, it is clear that Mr McGinley and Mr McMonagle were employed not through the financial assistance to political parties scheme but by Members of the House. Mr McGinley was employed by Declan McAleer from 2018 to 2024, as detailed in paragraphs 86 to 96 of the review report. Mr McMonagle was employed by the MP for West Tyrone, Ms Begley; the now First Minister, Ms O'Neill; and the Sinn Féin press offices. He was supposedly working a staggering 75 hours a week. In his strongest criticism in the review, in paragraph 113, the head of Legal Services tells us that it "strains credibility" to suggest that Sinn Féin was unaware of the situation. He goes on to claim that the fault lay with McMonagle, who had been referred to the PSNI. I carry no candle for Mr McMonagle, but to conduct a review of his conduct and have findings against him that result in a police complaint without so much as contacting him or either of the other two press officers named in the review report in order to get their side of the story does not — to use the Chief Executive's phrase — follow due process. The review did not consider the matters in a robust way either. At no point did the author of the review report ask whether McMonagle and McGinley worked out of the Sinn Féin press office in Stormont or out of an MLA's room. At no point did he pick up on the fact that one of McMonagle's supposed duties for Ms O'Neill, according to the job description reproduced in paragraph 105 of the report, was:

"Preparing and developing Assembly Questions".

Members, at no point during her employment of McMonagle could Ms O'Neill even table Assembly questions. Finally, the review did not examine the evidence. The head of Legal Services dismisses Ms O'Neill's description of Mr McMonagle as a "press officer". He even manages to gloss over the fact that Sinn Féin's in-house newspaper, 'Republican News', describes him as such. However, I want to take us to one of the most startling paragraphs in the report, paragraph 82:

"I considered asking media representatives in Parliament Buildings about how they perceived the role of these Members' employees. However, such evidence would be no more than anecdotal, and the probative value of such recollections against the view of the employing Members and the records held by the Assembly Commission’s Finance Office would be limited."

We know that, in that respect, the report is wrong. I say that definitively because of the article by Sam McBride that was published in the 'Belfast Telegraph' on Saturday18 January, in which he cites the Sinn Féin press office Christmas rota for 2020, issued on 22 December 2020. Over a 13-day period, McMonagle covers three days, the same number of days as Mr McGinley and, indeed, as the head of Sinn Féin press operations in the United Kingdom. The report is so desperate to escape the inescapable conclusion to which the evidence points: money that MLAs should have been using to provide a service to their constituents was being funnelled into Sinn Féin press operations. Now that the system employed by Sinn Féin has, to an extent, been exposed in the report, paragraph 70's contention that such a gross abuse of public money would not be picked up by a more extensive process of audit is an insult to auditors. There is no reason why the questions obviously ignored by the report — the public statements that McMonagle and McGinley were press officers; the published articles in which McMonagle was described as a press officer; whether McMonagle even worked out of an MLA's office and not a party office in this Building etc — could feature as part of such an audit to prevent a repeat of this scandal in future. Public perception of this place has been trashed. We have an opportunity today to back the motion, relook at how public moneys are spent in this place and put in place an extensive audit that will make sure that such a scandal never reoccurs. I trust that, because of the public money involved and the perceptions that the report has caused, Members will support the motion.

1,474 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:55 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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