Proposing an amendment to prevent MLAs controlling their own expenses this morning Jim Allister told the Assembly:
“Those who tabled the motion must have short memories. I do not think that the public have. The public well remember that, when the system that is proposed in the motion was in operation, namely that MLAs controlled, through the Commission, their own expenses, it was abused and the product was scandal. In the face of a tide of public outrage, the Assembly passed the Act in 2011 and, in doing that, recognised that it was untenable for Members to be in control of their salaries, pensions or allowances. Today, we are asked to retreat from that and recreate the circumstances that gave rise to such scandalous behaviour as Sinn Féin Members pouring £700,000 of their expenses — unknown, it was claimed, by some of their MLAs — into a body called Research Services Ireland Limited, headed by Sinn Féin’s finance director. When the BBC’s ‘Spotlight’ did a programme, they could find no website for Research Services Ireland. They could find no phone number. They could find not even one sheet of paper of research ever produced. It was a scam. It was a rip-off of public money.
“Michelle O’Neill, the current deputy First Minister, paid £18,000 of rent to a so-called cultural society for an office in Gulladuff: the South Derry Cultural and Heritage Society. One of the six trustees of the hall for which the money was paid let the cat out of the bag. A Mr Michael McGonagle claimed that Sinn Féin had raised the money to buy the building 30 years ago, and here was a Sinn Féin MLA, now the deputy First Minister, paying £18,000 per year — a colossal rent — to that supposed cultural society. Mr McGonagle went on to say that he had never heard of the South Derry Cultural and Heritage Society and that, as a trustee, he had never received any rent for the use of the building. Those are facts as established.
“We had the Church Street office in Ballymena and the scandal of £50,000 in one year claimed by a father and son — Members of this Assembly — to go into an office of which the first director was Seymour Sweeney of “I know of him” fame. He was replaced as sole director by Ian Paisley Jr’s father-in-law, who was then replaced by a DUP councillor who, when asked by ‘The Belfast Telegraph’ about the matter, said:
“I haven’t a clue. I know flip all about it … I know nothing about it, I’m only the landlord.”
“He later told BBC ‘Spotlight’, however, that the sole beneficiary of the rent was the bank. What does that mean? That means that rent for expenses was being used to pay off a mortgage to create a party asset.
“There was the Sinn Féin MLA who could not drive and who, apparently, was making a claim for £5,000 in mileage allowance. He said that he had never signed the form; someone else had done it for him. We had £9,000 claimed for oil in a former Speaker’s constituency office that was not used there. We had an MLA who claimed £7,000 for electrical equipment to create a paper-free office — iPads, laptops and computers — and then went on to claim £8,200 in stamps for his paperless office. What a farce. Such are the circumstances to which we are invited to return.
“I know that the panel has been guilty of some of the most irrational decisions, such as not being able to put your phone number on your office signage — I tried to take them to the ombudsman over that — or not being allowed more than one office; I suffered from that. I know that they made some ridiculous decisions and were most bumptious in trying to defend them. However, the principle here is whether we, as MLAs, should set our own salary. No. Should we set our own allowances? No. So why do we want to do it, particularly in circumstances where the body to which we want to give the powers did nothing about the £700,000 to Research Services Ireland, the Ballymena Church Street office or the fictitious claims to cultural societies? It swept it all under the carpet. Those are the circumstances that we want to recreate.
“I respectfully suggest to the House that we are headed very much in the wrong direction. That is why I say that we need to leave the quantum — the amount — of the expenses with the independent panel but we need to take enhanced powers to give guidance to that panel when it makes irrational, unjustifiable or absurd decisions.
“I heard the proposer of the motion say that there is no legal power. Has he never read section 2(4) of the 2011 Act? It says:
“The Panel may consider any other matter which is relevant to the discharge of its functions, either on its own initiative or at the written request of the Commission.”
“The Commission already has the power to write to the panel to say, “You made a decision about not MLAs not being able to put their phone number on their office signage. Would you please reconsider that for the following reasons?”. It can make a written request to say, “You have made a decision that is prejudicial to the maternity or paternity leave rights or sickness rights of our staff. Would you please look afresh at it?”. The power is there. Why is it not being exercised? Indeed, why has the panel never been reappointed? Why is it that a panel that ran out of office in 2016 has never been replaced? Did some people want the situation to fester so that they could reach this point of saying, “We have to do something about it”?
“The Member who proposed the motion left me unclear about what he intends. He said, at one point, that the Assembly Commission would bring forward a Bill to change the range and scope of the panel, and then, towards the end, he said that the Commission would bring forward a new determination. Which is it? Are you just going to wipe out the panel or override it by a determination on foot of a mere resolution of the House? There is legislation. Are you going to change the legislation to do the very things that, you said, you would not do a few years ago? We need some clarity. Are you thinking that, by mere determination, you can override the decisions made under the 2011 Act, or are you going to change the 2011 Act?
“If you want to do something, you have to change the 2011 Act and, when you change it, you can do exactly what is proposed in the amendment and thereby maintain the sanctity of separation between Members and allowances that gives the authority to make sure they stay on the rails at every turn.” Mr Allister’s amendment was rejected by 20 votes to 67.