SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has referred Ian Paisley MP to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner after it was revealed that a Maldivian government minister paid for a luxury holiday taken by him and his family.
The company that owns the resort in the Maldives where the family stayed said Mohamed Shainee requested the accommodation and settled the payment.
It came eight months after North Antrim MP Mr Paisley visited the country and lobbied on its government’s behalf.
He did not declare details of the 2016 holiday to Parliament authorities, the BBC’s Spotlight revealed last December.that holidays to the Maldives were part-financed by Maldivian Government Ministers.
Mr Eastwood said that the disgraced MP must clarify the allegations as a matter of urgency.
Said the Foyle MLA: “Ian Paisley’s Maldives jetsetting has already disgraced his office and earned him a record suspension from Westminster.
“These new revelations further degrade his reputation and they degrade trust in politics.
“I have referred the matter again to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner for investigation. Ian Paisley should come forward now and clarify the circumstances of these holidays, who paid for them and on what basis.
“If he does not, then it is for Arlene Foster to take action and to do so quickly.”
Last year, Paisley was suspended for the House of Commons for 30 days after he failed to list foreign holidays paid for by the Sri Lankan government.
Ian Paisley apologising last year to MPs last week after he was caught out not declaring £51,000 in family holidays to Sri Lanka
Speaker of the House John Bercow called Paisley’s failure to register the £50,000 plus holidays from the human rights abusing Sri Lankan government as “a regrettable state of affairs”.
Sir Kevin Barron, chair of the Standards Committee, said at the time they had concluded Mr Paisley was guilty of “serious misconduct”.
Paisley’s suspension is one of the longest bans ever to be handed down at Westminster.
He failed to declare two luxury family holidays in 2013 paid for by the Sri Lankan government.
He later lobbied the then prime minister David Cameron on the country’s behalf.
Tags: