Stormont is the capital of lies and prevarication in Northern Ireland, the very seat of betrayal!
The whole regime, sited in a building that was once the political ‘Zion’ of Ulster Protestants, is now structured on lies and it pursues a perverse and fraudulent agenda which but faintly masks the true agenda of its Irish Republican majority — a united Ireland under a popish dominated Dublin!
There are few who occupy its seats who have not been caught out in deceit and falsehood in recent times.
There was a time when a person in public office who lied would immediately have resigned in shame. But with a record of public support for and glorying in terror, murder, thieving and treachery, it is not surprising that Sinn Fein does not step up and acknowledge their duplicity with regards the case of Michael McMonagle, a Sinn Fein employee, indeed a Sinn Fein press officer.
Michael McMonagle was arrested by police investigating sexual offences while working as a Sinn Féin press officer and the party was informed in August 2021.
We are told in the press that two other Sinn Fein employees, former press office colleagues, provided McMonagle with references before he was hired as an events and communication manager with the British Heart Foundation in September 2022.
Michelle O’Neill says she knew nothing about the references.
Michelle O’Neill has also said at the time, the party “took decisive action” and, in line with their policies, immediately suspended McMonagle as a party member and as press officer.
From then on, the First Minister says, she had “no further contact with him”.
McMonagle accompanies the family of Dáithí Mac Gabhann at a British Heart Foundation event in Stormont in February 2023 which was also attended by the First Minister.
Ms O’Neill has said that her “sole focus was on Dáithí and supporting the family to raise awareness for the campaign”.
“I was not aware that Michael McMonagle was at this event and I had no knowledge that he had gained employment with the British Heart Foundation,” she has since said in a statement.
Here is a picture that seems to question the validity of O’Neill’s assertion.
If she did not see him then, in the words of a well known advert: ‘She should have gone to ‘Specsavers’!!
First Minister O’Neill has confirmed that Sinn Féin’s former HR manager, who failed to inform the party leadership that references had been provided for convicted paedophile Michael McMonagle, remains a party member.
The Sinn Féin vice president was summoned before the Assembly on Tuesday 7th October to answer questions on the scandal that has engulfed her party after it emerged that two former press officers had provided employment references for Michael McMonagle after he had been dismissed from employment with the party in the wake of his arrest on child sex charges.
Belfast Telegraph
The Belfast Telegraph’ of 8th October had an article headlined: Sinn Fein appear to have broken Assembly rules when paying former press officer Michael McMonagle.
The article goes on to say: ‘Party used fund which explicitly ring-fenced to help constituents and not the party in order to fund spin-doctor who turned out to be a paedophile. Sinn Féin appears to have broken Assembly rules in how it claimed taxpayers’ money to pay Michael McMonagle, a man who wrote those rules last night said.
The party refused to answer questions about the issue.
The Assembly had also not responded to questions at the time of going to press, but said it will soon provide answers to how and why McMonagle — who now admits he is a paedophile —was paid from the fund.
Office Costs Expenditure (OCE) is Stormont’s most lucrative expenses stream, amounting to almost £10m a year.
It was once used by several parties to fund their press offices, something which when exposed by BBC Spotlight in 2009 helped persuade MLAs that they should no longer set the rules for their own expenses.
As far back as 2012, the rules stated that “OCE is specifically NOT to be used for party political purposes” because “political parties are financed separately through the Financial Assistance for Political Parties Scheme (FAPP)”.
FAPP is a second fund which pays party backroom staff — including press officers — from public funds.
However, McMonagle was not paid from that fund and was listed by Sinn Féin as a constituency worker for various MLAs at various times — one of whom was Michelle O’Neill.
The rules were set by the Independent Financial Review Panel (IFRP) which was brought in by MLAs to help clean up politics in 2011.
The following year, it set out 10 principles for MLAs’ expenses, one of which was that “resources provided to enable MLAs to undertake their Assembly duties must not, directly or indirectly, benefit party political funding or be used for party political activities”.
McMonagle was clearly working for the benefit of Sinn Féin. He was employed in the party’s centralised press office which handles questions on all party matters, whether related to MLAs, MPs, its then MEP, councillors or party staff.
Press officers are involved in defending their party’s reputation and attacking rivals through the media — something very different to constituency office staff who typically help members of the public with problems.’
Cesspool
Sinn Fein’s foul cesspool of deceptions makes Lough Neagh’s ‘rotten and smelly’ green algae, ‘smell like roses’, yet O’Neill and her compatriots are happy to swim in it!!!
It has also been stated that in answer to a question in Stormont by independent MLA Claire Sugden, as to what conversations Michelle O’Neill had with her partner in government, Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, about the viability of O’Neill’s role and the executive in the wake of the fallout. O’Neill responded, saying they “haven’t spoken about it at this stage”.
The failure to challenge Sinn Fein’s whole evil charade by the DUP Deputy First Minister, MLA Emma Little-Pengelly, is typical of the silence exercised by the DUP in the glaring face of Sinn Féin’s deviousness since ‘powersharing’ began in 2007.
TUV Statement
TUV North Antrim MLA Timothy Gaston has tabled the following motion in the Assembly business office:
That this Assembly notes the inconsistencies in the accounts of the First Minister in relation to what she and her party knew and did in relation to the Michael McMonagle scandal, condemns the First Minister and Economy Minister for their attacks on the British Heart Foundation, repudiates the Economy Minister’s groundless claim that warning a charity about a potential police investigation into Michael McMonagle would have prejudiced the investigation and accordingly has no confidence in the said Ministers and therefore calls for them to resign.
Commenting Mr Gaston said:
“With every day which passes, sometimes it seems every hour, there are new revelations which tie Sinn Fein as an organisation and Ms O’Neill particularly more closely to the Michael McMonagle scandal.
“Her disgraceful efforts to palm the scandal off unto the British Heat Foundation by suggesting they were negligent – something of which her colleague the Economy Minister is also guilty – and preposterous attempt to claim that she did not see Michael McMonagle at an event at Stormont have left her position as First Minister utterly untenable. Ms O’Neill’s claims about not noticing McMonagle are even less credible now we know that she had personally employed him.
“Do others agree? If so, they will sign my motion.
“These issues now raise questions not just for Sinn Fein but for those who partner them in government. Are they content to continue to remain in an Executive headed by such an individual?
“Don’t forget that there are interesting precedents.
“Peter Robinson stepped aside when scandal swirled around him.
“Arlene now Baroness Foster was forced from office over RHI when the deputy First Minister resigned.
“Is the First Minister going to step aside while these issues are investigated?
“If she isn’t are the DUP content to allow her to remain in office?
“I remind the DUP that it is in their hands to remove her.
“If Ms O’Neill won’t step aside then the deputy First Minister, Ms Pengelly. is obliged to force her from office by resigning.”
No Collapsing of Stormont
DUP leader Gavin Robinson MP recently said that the Stormont regime would never be collapsed by the DUP under his leadership. The ‘Belfast Newsletter’ of September 23rd had this headline: DUP will not collapse Stormont powersharing under my leadership, vows Gavin Robinson.
That being the case, any real and effective challenging of Sinn Féin’s lies would appear to be ‘off limits’ for any member of the DUP who might wish to confront the blatant deceptions of Sinn Fein. That would seem to be the DUP leader’s position with regards risking a collapsing of the ‘nest of vipers’ that Stormont has become!
The saga of prevarication, evasion and downright lying continues. The newspaper headlines of late illustrate this!
What a folly began back in 2007 under the Democratic Unionist Party and how that folly has grown until ‘Unionism’ is virtually enslaved by Irish Republicans, the patrons of terrorism and murder.
‘Quislings’ seems too mild a term for what the DUP and its supporters have become!
The fate of ‘liars’ is most dreadful and ought to deter anyone from deviating from the truth!
“But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death,” Revelation 21:8.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)
9th October 2024