Speaker Rejects Claims He Misled NI Assembly

The Stormont Assembly Speaker has rejected allegations that he was an official adviser of Charter NI, a public-funded charity with links to the UDA.

DUP MLA Robin Newton has been accused of misleading the Assembly after BBC Northern Ireland's Spotlight programme claimed the board minutes of Charter NI indicated that he was an adviser to the charity.

In a statement Mr Newton said: "I reject the allegations in the Spotlight programme.

"I did not mislead the NI Assembly. I have never been appointed to any position with Charter NI. I am not responsible for how others refer to me in their correspondence.

"I will not be a candidate for Speaker in any new Assembly. At the next NI Assembly sitting, I will chair the election of a new Speaker as the first matter of business."

The community group was awarded management of £1.7m of public money for an employability project.

However, Alliance MLA David Ford said he is seeking to refer Mr Newton to the Commissioner for Standards.

He said: "Alliance recognises people with a paramilitary past can play a positive and constructive role in society. But when people with a paramilitary present are doing so, there is a problem. That is the situation with some individuals in Charter NI. 



"We have serious concerns about the lack of fairness and effective use of resources being directed towards certain groups, which is why we wrote in the summer to ask for an Audit Office investigation into SIF."

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood also called on DUP leader Arlene Foster to respond to the Spotlight revelations.

He said: "The public have every right to be angry - the last 10 years of government in Northern Ireland has brought us scandals in RHI, Red SKY, NAMA and now SIF.

"The Spotlight programme also contains huge questions for Sinn Féin – they cannot wash their hands of their role in all of this.

"As a party they were jointly responsible for the SIF funds and for every other decision which went through the Executive Office. They were jointly responsible for the channelling of funds to groups linked to the UDA.

"Therefore, they are jointly responsible for the corruption of Northern Ireland's politics. This was their status quo and they were up to their necks in it."

(CD)