During questions to the Finance Minister Jim Allister asked the Minister to outline changes to the Ministerial Code. In his supplementary question Mr Allister asked:
“I am more interested in how robust the Ministerial Code will be.
“For example, if you had a Minister who after a paramilitary killing in his constituency he described the innocent victim as a criminal in order to take the heat off the organisation which carried out the murder and if he vacillated between denying having said that ultimately apologising for the hurt caused but never withdrawing the words that the victim was a criminal would such a Minister be caught and accountable under the Ministerial Code that this Minister is bringing forward?”
Unsurprisingly Minister Murphy failed to give any such assurance.