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 4764243

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank everybody who has taken part in the debate. Time and time again, the Assembly has failed to face up to the issues that are supposedly addressed in the review report. Attempts to raise matters that relate to that scandal have been shut down in the Chamber and in Committee. Frankly, many in the Chamber are terrified of upsetting the consensus, and the lack of names on the speaking list is testament to the fact that most Members simply want the issue to go away. That having been said, it appears that parties have decided that they cannot be seen to vote against the motion. I welcome the fact that, at long last, the Assembly has displayed some willingness to tackle the issues. I remind Members that, now that they have been forced to debate the motion and forced to calculate that they cannot be seen to vote against it, there is an onus on them to take action. For all the talk of some people during elections about being the only ones with the ability to confront Sinn Féin, it took a single TUV member to bring the matter to the Floor. The suggestion contained in the review report that it is impossible to distinguish between party political work and constituency work needs to be knocked on the head. In 2012, the independent financial review panel ruled specifically that constituency funding was not to be used for party political purposes because:

"Political parties are financed separately through the Financial Assistance for Political Parties Scheme".

Tellingly, a former member of the independent financial review panel described as astonishing the review's conclusion that it was difficult or even impossible to distinguish between political and constituency work. We also learned from that panel member that the head of Legal Services made no attempt to clear up the confusion in his mind by contacting members of the panel to ask how they had drawn a distinction that he felt was impossible. As Sam McBride observed, the review, if accepted, opens up the potential for a £10 million pot of public money to seep into political parties. That cannot be right; it cannot be allowed to happen. Other issues raised by the McMonagle scandal remain live. A fact that has received relatively little attention is that, because Sinn Féin, specifically North Antrim MLA Philip McGuigan, its sole contributor to the debate, failed to cancel Michael McMonagle's Assembly pass, he could come and go as he pleased at Parliament Buildings. In order to probe that issue, I asked the Assembly Commission:

"to detail (i) the number of times, including dates, that Michael McMonagle entered Parliament Buildings since being charged with sexual offences against children; and (ii) any groups, including schools and youth groups, that visited Parliament Buildings on the dates Michael McMonagle was in Parliament Buildings during this period."

The Commission told me that it had absolutely no idea. Profoundly serious child protection issues are involved here that should not be ignored merely because the political and media establishment believes that the rotten institutions of the Belfast Agreement are more important than child safety. Given the reluctance of Members to flood the speaking list for today's debate, I suspect that there will not be a rush to do as I say, but I remind Members that this scandal and the disgraceful slurs thrown at the British Heart Foundation by Ms O'Neill and Minister Murphy prompted me to table a motion of no confidence in both Ministers. Members, you are still welcome to sign that; it is in the Business Office. Since the motion was tabled, Ms O'Neill has provided ample evidence of her unfitness for office, none more so than her attendance at IRA commemorations. The Assembly has damaged its reputation in seeking to evade the issues related to the scandal. The credibility of the Committee system is in tatters. The confidence of the public in Stormont's ability to properly manage money is through the floor. That comes, importantly, at a point at which public finances are under pressure as never before. When the motion is agreed, there will be an onus on the Assembly Commission to go back to the drawing board on the issue: to get in someone who is serious about getting to the truth rather than someone who approached the issue from the premise that MLAs are to be taken at their word, regardless of where the evidence leads; and to put on pressure and put measures in place to ensure that money does not flow from constituency needs to party political operations. I remind Members that, if they do not force a Division on the motion, they accept either that the First Minister misled the House when she described Mr McGinley and Mr McMonagle as press officers or that her party, and she, as an individual who employed Michael McMonagle as a constituency worker, misused public money. In any Assembly or Parliament worthy of the name, that would be a resigning matter. Any party with dignity and respect for democratic norms would refuse to partner in Government with people who have abused public money in such a blatant fashion, but democratic norms do not apply to Northern Ireland. Members have shown a remarkable ability to overlook the IRA's ill-gotten gains from the Northern Bank, the murder of Paul Quinn, the abuse of Máiría Cahill and the continued role of the IRA army council in overseeing Sinn Féin and its retention —.

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker. There was also the Assembly expenses scandal surrounding Sinn Féin 11 years ago, when the BBC 'Spotlight' programme lifted the lid on Research Services Ireland. I will go through some of the contributions to the debate. As I said, Mr McGuigan was Sinn Féin's sole contributor. He is the man who did not cancel the pass. Here, today, there was no response to the points that were made. The DUP's Diane Dodds highlighted that questions still exist, having gone unanswered to this day. Yes, I am aware that audits exist, but my problem is that the existing audits did not pick up on the scandal. We need to go back to the drawing board to make the audits more robust and ensure that this does not happen again. Alliance's Eóin Tennyson said that the matter raised serious concern. Unfortunately, it was an Alliance Member who shielded the First Minister when she came to the Committee. The Committee Chair, who is from your party, shielded Michelle O'Neill from answering the questions that were put directly to her by Committee members. Mr Butler, from the Ulster Unionist Party, reminded the House of the scandal's unfortunate links to the British Heart Foundation and the fact that it involved that organisation when it really did not need to. A shameful slur was put on the British Heart Foundation by Ms O'Neill and Mr Murphy. The SDLP's Mr O'Toole, the leader of the Opposition, called into question the competence of the First Minister. I agree with his comment that it is:

"absurd and insulting to people's intelligence"

to suggest that we cannot tell the difference between party and constituency work. Every MLA who spoke in the debate, apart from the Sinn Féin Member, accepted that the First Minister has questions to answer. Mr Carroll attempted to table an amendment to deal with the FAPP scheme, and I am glad that he brought that up today. He reminded the House that, in the past, many MLAs paid family members and that we had the RHI scandal. The House has been tainted by scandals from mandate to mandate and from year to year. I agree with Mr Carroll that the FAPP scheme was a carve-up for the bigger parties, namely the DUP, Sinn Féin and Alliance. My goodness, they do not like the voice of opposition here in the corner. There are not very many of us, but we take the opportunity to hold them to account where possible. The SDLP talks about constructive opposition. It is about time that the SDLP took off the gloves, because the Executive need to be held to account. It is sad that it took one MLA to bring this matter to the attention of the House and put it in the Order Paper, but that is what I have done. I trust that all parties, including Sinn Féin, will support the motion.

1,408 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Not flagged

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The central thrust is a practical, scrutiny-based argument: constituency funding should not flow to party political work, the review's conclusion that the two cannot be distinguished should be rejected, audits should be made 'more robust', and there are unanswered child-protection questions about an Assembly pass. Late in the speech the member turns to the First Minister's 'attendance at IRA commemorations', 'the continued role of the IRA army council in overseeing Sinn Féin' and 'the rotten institutions of the Belfast Agreement', which bring in Troubles legacy flashpoints. These are aimed at one party and its leadership rather than at nationalists or any community as a whole, and they are a tangent to the main argument rather than its point, so the rubric's identity-framing and antagonism tests are not clearly met.

Public interest or divisiveness

Most of the contribution deals with substance: the misuse of public money, the independent panel's 2012 ruling, the possibility of a '£10 million pot' seeping into parties, and safeguarding at Parliament Buildings. It also contains sharp partisan point-scoring that reaches beyond the motion into Troubles-era allegations and IRA commemorations, which feeds a familiar legacy row. Both elements are substantial, though the scrutiny of public money is the evident purpose of the speech.

Jev’s structured answers

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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