NI Conservatives chair, Irwin Armstrong, has said that the BBC’s Spotlight investigation into alleged political interference in the housing executive by DUP minister, Nelson McCausland, “emphasises the need for more accountability in the executive”.
“The programme made some grave allegations and Nelson McCausland had better have some convincing answers”, Irwin noted. “Indeed a number of the incidents which the BBC believes to have happened on his watch verge on criminal behaviour and the PSNI should investigate whether it is necessary to bring charges. We also wait to see how the DUP treats its whistleblower, Councillor Jenny Palmer, with much interest.”
“This affair threatens to underline again the relative impunity and lack of accountability under which ministers in the Northern Ireland executive operate. After all, we only recently learned that Nelson McCausland had presided over a huge overspend in his social development department. There was the complete shambles at NI Water overseen by Conor Murphy, the ongoing crisis in the department for education and countless examples of irregular spending across the executive. The public are entitled to ask, what does it take to force a minister in Northern Ireland to do the decent thing and resign?”
“The only way to provide accountability for voters and to put the executive under proper scrutiny is to introduce an opposition at Stormont. The Red Sky affair emphasises again how badly we need a change and make the Assembly Executive Review Committee’s failure to recommend a major revamp of our system of government all the more disappointing.”