TUV North Antrim MLA Timothy Gaston has written to Assembly Speaker Edwin Poots after Sinn Fein Principal Deputy Speaker Caral Ni Chuilin shut down his attempts to raise the misuse of public money to fund party press offices during a debate on the Assembly Commission budget. The Assembly Commission budget funds both MLA offices and party political work. Moments later, the Sinn Fein Principal Deputy Speaker permitted West Belfast MLA Gerry Carroll to raise points about monies spent by the Commission on companies with links to Israel. You can watch the full exchange here.
Mr Gaston’s letter reads as follows:
Dear Mr Speaker,
I wish to draw your attention to the debate on the Northern Ireland Assembly Commission Budget for the Financial Year 2025-26.
During that debate I sought to raise issues related to how the public monies dispensed by the Commission appear to have been employed by Sinn Fein to fund their press operation.
The points I raised were directly relevant to the matter before the House – I would draw your attention to paragraphs 75 and 18 and lines 3 (Constituency costs (incl staff)) and 9 (Party Allowance) in Table 1 in Annex A of the Commission briefing to assist the Audit Committee’s scrutiny of the Commission budget for 2025-26 which was provided to members before the debate – but I was shut down by the Principal Deputy Speaker.
Immediately after I sat down the Member for West Belfast, Mr Carroll, raised points about monies spent by the Commission on companies with links to Israel.
As the matter under debate was the budget of the Assembly Commission I have no great problem with Mr Carroll being permitted to raise these issues. What I do, however, have a problem with is being shut down when making legitimate points which were directly related to the budget of the Commission and how it is used.
Accordingly, I ask you to review the Hansard from this afternoon, ensure that members are treated equally by the chair going forward and reassure me that legitimate questions about the use of public money under the control of the Assembly Commission will be permitted going forward.
Yours sincerely,
Timothy Gaston