Michelle O’Neill’s private office has failed to furnish a Stormont scrutiny committee with minutes of a controversial meeting its chair held with the first minister before she faced questions from MLAs last month.
The fractious October 23 Executive Office committee meeting saw the Sinn Féin deputy leader quizzed over recent safeguarding scandals involving her party.
Beforehand Ms O’Neill requested a private meeting with committee chair Paula Bradshaw. It is understood the brief “informal meeting” related to the legal advice the committee had received regarding its remit for questioning the Sinn Féin deputy leader.
At the committee’s meeting on Wednesday, its first since October 23, the chair confirmed that the minutes of her meeting with the first minister had been requested from Ms O’Neill’s private office.
However, the Alliance MLA told committee members “they {the minutes} have not arrived”.
No reason was offered for the absence of the minutes.
Committee member Sinead McLaughlin said failure to produce the minutes “points to a wider pattern of behaviour”.
She said it was unclear who had taken the minute and how detailed it was.
“To be honest I have no great expectation that if and when these minutes are produced they will shed any meaningful light on what went on,” the Foyle MLA said.
Ms McLaughlin said there were wider issues around note taking and record-keeping within Stormont departments.
“The recent Audit Office report showed that rather than improving, standards are actually going backwards,” she said.
“The failure to produce the minutes points to a wider pattern of behaviour around the Executive Committee not receiving important papers in a timely fashion and it’s something we intend to raise with officials in the near future.”
