East Derry MP Gregory Campbell
EAST Derry DUP MP Gregory Campbell has been heavily criticised for saying there’s a “bad smell about” during a committee meeting.
His outrageous remark is being linked to the Edwin Poots’ Sinn Fein “stench” row.
Mr Campbell made his “contemptible” outburst as he sat down at a Social Development Committee meeting in Stormont last week.
He said “there’s a bad smell about” at the start of the Committee hearing which was being chaired by Sinn Fein MLA Alex Maskey.
The comment was made to party colleagues and was picked up on the Committee microphones.
His remark was made last Thursday the day after the former DUP Health Minister Edwin Poots said to Mr Maskey on the BBC’s Nolan Live show: “We’ll do business with you because it’s in the interests of Northern Ireland.
“We have peace in Northern Ireland, so we’ll hold our noses and do business with you.
“I do not like doing business with Sinn Fein.
“I hold my nose about what has gone on in the past, about the activities of the IRA over 25 years, of the murders that took place and there’s a stench that still rises from that in many homes across Northern Ireland.”
Sinn Fein Committee member Fra McCann described Gregory Campbell’s comments and behaviour at last week’s Social Development committee as “disgraceful”.
He added: “It will come as little surprise to many though that he chose to ape the contemptible comments of his party colleague Edwin Poots on the Nolan Show the previous night.
“This is indicative of the regard in which some unionist politicians hold the nationalist and republican electorates.
“Unfortunately for Gregory and his ilk there is no getting away from the fact that, although he may not like it, he has to work with nationalist and republicans as equals within the Assembly.”
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