People Before Profit MLA Eamonn McCann
PEOPLE Before Profit Foyle MLA Eamonn McCann has hit out at allegations that Sinn Fein ‘coached’ loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson before he gave evidence to a Stormont committee investigating the Nama loan book sale of properties in the North.
The scandal revealed that the chair of the committee, Sinn Fein MLA Daithi McKay set up a back channel for Bryson with Sinn Fein party member Thomas O’Hara.
Leaked tweets to The Irish News reveal that O’Hara ‘coached’ Bryson on how to present his evidence to the Committee last September.
In the light of the scandal, the People Before Profit party has called for emergency meeting of Stormont’s Standards and Privileges Committee.
In a statement, Eamonn McCann MLA said: “‘The fact that senior Sinn Féin elements were scheming to destroy the First Minister of the Executive is not a shocking deviation from the norm but an accurate reflection of the politics which typify Stormont.
“Sinn Féin and the DUP are locked in loveless embrace. They can only stay together by each agreeing to ignore each other’s infidelities.
“But sometimes the truth is blurted out—or drawn out by journalists—and they all have to put their best faces forward and pretend that what’s happened is no big deal, or at least doesn’t involve anybody who is a big deal.’
“Nama was brought into being to deal with the outturn of the collapse of the banks in 2008 under weight of the greed of the chancers running them.
“The taxpayers of the South were then the victims of shakedown. The people rather than the parasites paid the price.
“Now the poison, no respecter of borders, seeps out and spreads. It was the shady nature of the Nama affair itself which made the sequence of events at Stormont possible.
“North and South, the criminality of the super-rich has enfeebled the institutions of the State.’
“‘Unfortunately, Sinn Féin has succeeded in what many would thought an impossible task— to make Mr. Robinson and the DUP appear as injured, innocent parties’
‘The issue runs deep. If you divide the people into separate communities, each bossed by a party intent on sharing power but not sharing a common aim, there’s bound to be breakdown eventually.’
“If the Executive gets over this crisis, there’ll be another one along soon enough.’
Party colleague Gerry Carroll, MLA for West Belfast, has called for an emergency sitting of the Standards and Privileges Committee:
“‘I have called for an emergency sitting of the Standards and Privileges Committee to begin an investigation into allegations of interference with witnesses by the previous Chair of the Finance Committee.’
“As members of the Committee, it is our role to expose and deal with corruption where we find it.
“That’s what PBP is up here to do. That’s what we promised voters on the doors we would do, and that’s why I’ve called for this meeting.’
“For too long, Sinn Féin the DUP have been at the heart of scandals which have rocked the Assembly, and the people who suffer most are the public.
“It’s time we had a full accounting of these shenanigans so that all of the details can be made public as soon as possible,” added Mr O’Carroll.
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