Debate contribution: Timothy Gaston MLA: Committee on Standards and Privileges Report

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 2 February 2026.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

2 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Committee Business

Heading

Timothy Gaston MLA: Committee on Standards and Privileges Report

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5356903

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. At the heart of the complaint and the finding against me is a political witch-hunt. The complaint is not about protecting and promoting scrutiny or holding Members accountable when they fall short. The complaint exposes the disdain of the middle class for this country, working lad rocking up to the big house on the hill and daring to challenge the process and hold the establishment accountable. The complaint is rooted in protecting those in power. Paragraph 24 of the report lists a sample of the questions that I asked which the commissioner objected to and judged to be in breach of rule 13. There was, I am told:

"improper interference with the performance of the Assembly's functions".

A simple question that I asked the First Minister about Michael McMonagle was:

"How many days a week did he work in your office?"

Do we know the answer? We still do not. I asked whether McMonagle had done any work or whether Sinn Féin was using the money for itself: can anybody answer me that question? I asked:

"What was the IRA doing in a Sinn Féin office?",

which is mentioned on page 110 of Máiría Cahill's book. Finally, I asked:

"do you want to take this opportunity to apologise to Máiría ... ?"

That was the direct question that I put to the First Minister that seems to have got up the nose of the Chair of the Committee. In my book, those are all good questions, yet they all remain unanswered. Let me ask the House a simple question: why did that evidence session take place? Mr Buckley articulated it well. The answer, of course, is that the public were demanding answers about the fallout from the Michael McMonagle scandal, which was that a now-convicted paedophile was on the payroll of the First Minister of no alternative, Mrs O'Neill. The Executive Office is responsible for matters including legislation on historical abuse. Those questions not only were relevant to the First Minister personally but went to the heart of her suitability to hold office.

Absolutely. I will come on to the valid point that the Member has raised. Looking back, I ask this: if Mrs O'Neill should not have been asked questions about McMonagle in the meeting that day, when would we have had the opportunity to challenge her? She was the employer, and he was the employee. That was the opportunity to put those questions to her. It is claimed that other questions that I asked breached the code. Everyone who votes to accept the report today believes that I deserve sanction for asking:

"do you want to take this opportunity to apologise to Máiría ... ?"

I say this directly to the SDLP: that is what you are voting for today. The Executive Office's flagship strategy is ending violence against women and girls, yet we cannot ask the First Minister, who is leading on that strategy, about the rape of a citizen of this Province. We have an office that has a duty in statute to look after the interests of victims, yet we cannot ask the First Minister about the links between her party and the IRA, as described in Máiría's book. Did anyone who will vote for the motion even bother to reach out and speak to Máiría after reading the report? I did, simply because she had been in contact with my office specifically on the issue of Mrs O'Neill's hypocrisy over ending violence against women and girls. If the House cannot tolerate someone asking questions on behalf of a victim of IRA sexual violence to a Minister who pontificates about violence against women and girls, I simply do not know. Look at it: I was asking questions to a Minister who has responsibility for victims' issues and is in charge of legislation to address harm caused by historical abuse. If I cannot ask those questions in here, I fear that the House has no moral compass and no future. If Members think that voting for the sanction will stop me asking those questions, which, in the words of the commissioner's report, amounted to:

"improper interference with the performance of the Assembly's functions",

they have another thing coming. I have no apology to make for asking those questions. I would ask them again, and I will until we get answers. I will leave it to the public to draw their own conclusions about the basket case that this place has become, if asking those questions amounts to "improper interference". Some may point out that Ms Bradshaw and others on the Committee asked questions of a similar nature, but, sure, that does not fit the commissioner's narrative.

One must ask why only this Member is being sanctioned for the questions that were asked that day. Is it OK to ask one or two questions that make the establishment feel uncomfortable, but if you ask nine of them, it is a case of, "Oh no. That's a breach of the rules"? What is the limit to my article 10 rights? I did not have the opportunity to access legal advice during the process, but I am forever grateful to my barrister, Emma McIlveen, for providing a legal opinion on the report. That legal opinion was shared with all Members in advance of the debate. The House knows, therefore, that that is one of the questions that she addresses in her opinion. Even if you accept that the questions should not have been asked — I certainly do not hold that view — nowhere in the report is that issue addressed by the commissioner. Show me the Standing Order that defines how many questions is too many. When I tried to get in during an Alliance Member's contribution, she did not take my intervention. That is the question that I was going to put to her. Political speech cannot be punished on the basis of a rule that no Member could ever understand in advance. That was left to the discretion of the Chairperson, who could not hide her disdain for me when one of her establishment colleagues — one of her mates in Sinn Féin — had to leave the Committee when I came to this place, and she was faced with someone with principles and a backbone. That is a rare combination in politicians, I know, but unionism is finding more and more people with those as the mandate goes on. Another finding in the report is that I breached rule 15 of the Members' code of conduct. That relates to a remark that I have conceded that I should not have made and for which I apologised on the day. I believe that that apology was accepted by Ms Bradshaw, but I will make two points about it. First, nowhere in the report does the commissioner or the Committee attempt to address the question of why that apology was accepted in that October and only became an issue three months later. Why was Ms Bradshaw never asked, by either the commissioner or the Committee, to explain that delay? To resurrect it months later is political; it is a punishment by ambush. I believe that the only reason that Ms Bradshaw ever submitted her complaint is because I lodged a complaint about her conduct after she held a private meeting, as Committee Chair, with the First Minister in October 2024. I will leave aside Ms Bradshaw's condescending conduct to me on 23 October 2024 and in the weeks prior to that and look at how she addresses other MLAs in the House. Ms Bradshaw is recorded in Hansard as interrupting my North Antrim colleague Mr Burrows, as he spoke about how he lived behind armoured glass, under threat from terrorists. What did Ms Bradshaw say? She told him to:

"Grow up." — [Official Report (Hansard), 13 October 2025, p5, col 1].

Then, Ms Bradshaw is recorded in Hansard as saying to Upper Bann's Mr Buckley:

"You are telling lies." — [Official Report (Hansard), 9 December 2025, p22, col 1].

As I said in my point of order, that raises serious questions for the Chairperson of the Executive Office Committee. My goodness, Ms Bradshaw takes the same view as the commissioner, who produced the report, which is that the rules apply to everybody else but not to her. If rules are interpreted one way for Ministers, another way for Chairs and yet another way for Members, they are not standards; they are discretionary. The debate is not really about me. It is about whether the Assembly believes that power should be questioned, that Ministers should be accountable and that victims should not be silenced because their stories are inconvenient. I have been told that asking those questions amounted to "improper interference" with the performance of the Assembly's functions. The videos of the Committee are online for all to see. I am quite clear that members of the public will make up their own minds: it does not matter what this place says today.

1,511 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Legacy of the Troubles, victims and paramilitarism

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:22 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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