Relatives of loyalist paramilitary victims unlawfully denied public inquiries, High Court told
One victim ‘has now suffered the lack of an investigation for nearly 29 years’
ALAN ERWIN, Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
RELATIVES of six loyalist paramilitary murder victims are being unlawfully denied public inquiries into their deaths, the High Court heard yesterday.
The British Government has breached their human rights by refusing the only form of independent investigation capable of examining killings shrouded in allegations of security force collusion, it was claimed.
Separate applications for judicial review have been brought by the families of Raymond McCord Jr, Sam Marshall, Kevin and Jack McKearney, and Charles and Teresa Fox.
In 2024 inquests into the murders, all carried out by UVF factions during the 1990s, were halted in 2024 amid issues over sensitive intelligence disclosure and the introduction of the controversial Troubles Legacy Act.
Lawyers representing the victims’ families are now seeking orders compelling Secretary of State Hilary Benn to establish full public inquiries into the murders.
But counsel for the government claimed the challenges should be put on hold until after the Supreme Court rules on a legacy investigation commission’s powers and capabilities in dealing with Troubles-era cases.
Former RAF man Raymond Mc-Cord Jr (22) was beaten to death by loyalist paramilitaries before his body was dumped in a quarry outside north Belfast in 1997.
Evidence of collusion
A subsequent police ombudsman probe found evidence of collusion between some Special Branch officers and the UVF terror unit involved in the killing.
His father, the high-profile victims campaigner Raymond McCord, insists that a public inquiry should now be established to uncover the full truth.
The court heard he has been denied proper answers ever since the inquest initially opened before being put on hold back in 2001.
Barrister Martin O’Rourke KC argued there was an ongoing breach of his client’s Article 2 entitlements under the European Convention on Human Rights.
“Mr McCord has now suffered the lack of an investigation for nearly 29 years,” he said.
“At the moment there is no viable mechanism for him to have an investigation into his son’s death (apart from) a public inquiry.”
Mr Justice McLaughlin was told that the campaigner is also seeking damages for the alleged unlawful delay in holding an effective tribunal.
Similar challenges were also mounted by relatives of the other murder victims in inquests were stopped due to issues around disclosing documents under public interest immunity before the Legacy Act was brought in.
Under the controversial legislation, parts of which were later struck down by the Court of Appeal, responsibility for investigating all conflict-related deaths was to pass to an independent body set to be known as the Legacy Commission.
The court was told that the Article 2 rights of all the bereaved families were at stake.
Kevin McKearney (32) and his 69-year-old uncle Jack were shot at their family butcher’s shop in Moy, Co Tyrone in January 1992.
Later that year husband and wife Charles and Teresa Fox, aged 63 and 54 respectively, were murdered at their home in the same village.
Mid-Ulster UVF
A UVF unit based in the mid-Ulster area carried out the four killings.
Counsel for the son of Mr and Mrs Fox, Desmond Fahy KC, insisted that ordering public inquiries would not open the floodgates to a deluge of other cases.
“In the 33 years since the murder of his parents there has been no investigation which is compliant with the Article 2 obligation of the state,” the barrister submitted.
“There is a lawful means of addressing that illegality, and that is by a statutory public inquiry.”
Similar proceedings have been brought by the sister of former republican prisoner Sam Marshall.
The 31-year-old was ambushed and shot dead by UVF gunmen after leaving a police station in Lurgan, Co Armagh in March 1990.
Claims of a security force role in the killing centred on the nearby presence of a Maestro car, later found to be a military intelligence vehicle.
Resisting the challenges on behalf of the Secretary of State, Tony McGleenan KC insisted it would be better to wait for the Supreme Court’s determination on the validity of the Government’s legacy proposals. He argued that a series of other forms of litigation have also been put on hold until that ruling assessment is delivered.
Reserving judgment in the applications for judicial review, Mr Justice McLaughlin pledged to give a decision as soon as possible.
Comment:
Anyone who supports the Legacy Bill should come to Belfast High Court and see and hear how our courts have delayed inquests from the day the victims were murdered. 29 years ago this year and still no inquest for my murdered son young Raymond, and do-gooders, politicians, academics, experts on the Troubles, those who never lost a family member now want us to trust Hilary Benn with his Bill and a new Commission to replace ICRIR.
We still won't get the disclosure we need and seek due to one man, Hilary Benn. He claims that he alone will decide which documents are given to the new Commission and the families. So I ask those who support the proposed Legacy Bill and the Commission, "If it was your son or daughter's grave you go each week to lay flowers would you be saying, ‘I don't need or want to know the truth of my child's murder?’ If the answer is ‘yes’, all I can say as a father who lost a precious loving son, ‘Hang your head in shame’.
And let’s not forget the special advocates appointed to sit in closed courts "representing" the victims’ families instead of the families’ barristers. They are there to provide STATE'S VERSION OF JUSTICE AND THE TROUBLES.
People in Republic need to talk about changes needed before unity
By Andy Pollak on 2Irelands Together website
On the eve of Ireland’s presidential election in October Kevin Rafter, professor of political communication at Dublin City University, came up with a good idea. He urged the new president to “convene a forum to examine the positives and negatives of unity for the Irish Republic itself, a debate that has not commenced.”
I think it unlikely that President Catherine Connolly will displease her Sinn Fein backers by taking action on such an idea. Sinn Fein don’t want an open forum to discuss what significant changes are needed in the South to make the idea of unity more palatable to unionists; they want a Citizens Assembly with one outcome, unity, and nothing upsetting to their base in both jurisdictions (and to people in South generally): no changed flag, no changed anthem, no rejoining the Commonwealth, no new constitutional clause recognising the British identity of the unionist minority and offering them protection for their British and Orange culture. They don’t want a debate on people paying more taxes and receiving reduced public services in a united Ireland.
Rejoining Commonwealth?
Take one of these items: rejoining the Commonwealth. 29 years ago President Mary Robinson, addressing the Merriman Summer School in County Clare, asked people to consider their reaction to the proposition that Ireland should rejoin the Commonwealth. She stressed that she was not posing the question as a political issue, but in the context of Irish people’s continuing insecurity about their identity.
“I think it is a good way of assessing the insecurities that we still have after 75 years – the lack of a firm sense of ourselves, so that we cannot address that question without a great deal of hesitation and emotion and conflicting views and no clear lines of direction,” she said.
The very idea of rejoining the modern successor of the hated British empire we fought so hard to leave is an outrage to many people in the republic. When a group of ordinary women were interviewed by UCD politics professor Jennifer Todd recently about changing symbols like the flag and anthem to help bring about Irish unity, they responded “intuitively, emotionally and forcefully”, answering ‘No, no, no, no’. When asked about joining the Commonwealth, they said it was like ‘spitting on your ancestors’ graves for everything that they fought for’. However once they heard their own conversation, they pulled back: at the end of the 90 minute focus group, participants were saying “sure that’s never going to work’, ‘we have to be more open minded, ready for some change as well.” Those two contradictory responses reveal both unchanging gut republicanism and a confused openness to the need for change.
Nearly three decades further on, and with the ‘Troubles’ in the North largely ended by the Good Friday Agreement, the possibility of re-joining the Commonwealth as a gesture that might make unionists look a little more kindly at a united Ireland is rarely even raised in discussions about unity in the Republic. In an ARINS/Irish Times opinion poll in December 2021, 71% of people said they would not accept rejoining the Commonwealth to help accommodate unionists in a ‘new’ Ireland. In the same poll 79% said they would not accept higher taxes; 79% less money for public services; 77% a new flag; and 72% a new anthem.
I had asked in an Irish Times column after President Robinson’s speech: “What price are we in the Republic prepared to pay for the beginning of lasting peace and harmony on this island? Not a very high price, I suspect. It’s a debate I’ve not heard yet so I don’t know. I wonder if people in the Republic feel they are so little part of the problem that they don’t have to make any sacrifices for peace. If that’s the majority opinion, let’s hear it. But at least let’s start a debate about what contribution, if any, the citizens of this Republic think they should make to the cause of peace in the North.” Replace ‘peace in the North’ with ‘Irish unity’ and you have the present situation.
Former SDLP leader Mark Durkan has a slightly different take on this. He said in an interview last year that successive Irish governments had made a mistake in not developing Article 3 of the post-1998 Constitution: “It is the firm will of the Irish Nation, in harmony and friendship, to unite all the people who share the territory of the island of Ireland, in all the diversity of their identities and traditions, recognising that a united Ireland shall be brought about only by peaceful means with the consent of a majority of the people, democratically expressed, in both jurisdictions in the island.”
Forum for Peace and Reconciliation
I believe it is that core phrase “in harmony and friendship” which particularly needs to be further developed. Durkan suggested that “perhaps the best way to take these matters forward would be if the Irish government did something like reconvene the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, or another body like it, but specifically with the idea of developing new understandings and appreciation in relation to Article 3.” He said that the 1994-1996 forum had allowed the parties and people involved to get away from fixed positions and to be creative and future-looking. Such a body could help to ensure that “thinking becomes less partisan, because it is shared, where it is informed and stimulated by other parties’ opinions and by expert opinion.” Civic unionists, if not political unionists, were part of that sharing, as they were in the New Ireland Forum in 1983-1984.
A new 26-county forum as suggested by Professor Rafter could examine other factors affecting opinion in the South on the unity issue. For example, has there been a new upsurge of nationalism in the republic that would make it increasingly difficult to sell major compromises on the flag, the anthem, Commonwealth membership, special arrangement for Northern unionists and so on? Is the renewed interest in the Irish language, especially among young people, evidence of that new nationalism? The huge success of the Irish-speaking, republican-inclined Belfast rap group Kneecap would suggest that it is. The big vote for President Catherine Connolly, with her passionate adherence to the language and to Irish neutrality, is another straw in the wind. During a recent discussion I had with Trinity College Dublin politics students, they agreed that there was a renewed pride in Irish identity among young people, and were uneasy about bringing “British colonisers” (i.e. Northern unionists) into a united Ireland.
Another issue that could be discussed in such a forum is the views on unity of the more than 20% of people in the Republic who are foreign born. “They will have identities that do not align themselves with traditional Green/Orange, Protestant/Catholic or British/Irish binaries. They will be looking not for historic vindication or vengeance, but for better futures for themselves and their children,” wrote Fintan O’Toole and Sam McBride in their recent book For and Against a United Ireland. Let us hear from their representatives at the proposed forum.
Lump it or like it?
Of course, the issues facing the integration of Northern unionists into a ‘new Ireland’ in “harmony and friendship” can simply be ignored. I sometimes suspect that many people in the South believe that with the rapidly increasing population of the island, the unionist minority in a united Ireland will only be a little over 10%, and therefore there is no need for any major compromises to attract them in. They will just have to ‘like it or lump it’ if and when a Border poll delivers that unity.
These are all issues that are rarely discussed in the Republic, including in the media. Are they discussed on social media? I simply don’t know: I’m a man of a certain age who does not use social media very often. What I do know – and agree with – is what O’Toole and McBride recommend in their scrupulously balanced treatment of the pluses and minuses of unity: it would be unwise to hold a Border poll “for a considerable period because even nationalist politicians are for now mostly engaging with the issue rhetorically”.
Let us, the politicians and people of the Republic, use that period well by setting up a forum to discuss these existential issues, and – in doing so – begin to get the often complacent nationalists of the present republic used to the idea that they too will have to make compromises if the ‘new Ireland’ is going to be a harmonious and – as far as possible – an undivided society. To quote O’Toole and McBride again: the outcome of a Border poll “will be determined by the growing number of people who are open to persuasion. The open-minded will not be swayed by slogans or appeals to tribal solidarity. They will want good answers to hard questions. Both sides will have to be prepared to make arguments based on facts about the present and realistic projections about the future.” Let us hear those facts, arguments and projections in a new government-established forum in Dublin.
This article first appeared in the 500th issue of the Belfast magazine Fortnight. This independent magazine of politics and the arts has been published, with a couple of short breaks, since 1970. I was its editor from 1981 to 1985.
The wreckage of the Chinook helicopter that crashed on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994
Bloody Sunday and Chinook crash among ‘cover ups’ featured in new exhibition
JOHN BRESLIN, Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
CHRIS Dockerty was a major in the British Army when he died in the 1994 Chinook helicopter crash, one of 29 people who perished, including many among the top tier of intelligence officers in Northern Ireland.
His sister Nicola Rawcliffe and other campaigners want the full truth about why he and all the others who died were allowed to board the helicopter for the fateful journey that ended on a hillside on the Mull of Kintyre.
The crash, Bloody Sunday and 13 other scandals, disasters and tragedies will feature in a new travelling exhibition on claimed cover-ups to be launched in Belfast tomorrow.
A victim of the Post Office scandal, which led to the conviction of multiple people over many years, will speak at the launch of the Candour and Communities exhibition at the Linen Hall Library.
The organisers of the tour are directly linking the exhibition to the Hillsborough Law currently making its way through the Houses of Parliament.
A ‘duty of candour’
When enacted, the law will place a ‘duty of candour’ on public officials, both forcing them to tell the truth or face prosecution but also protecting them from any retribution from their department, agency or other body.
However, the proposed legislation has stalled over the extent to which the security services and agents will be covered by the officially titled Public Office (Accountability) Bill.
Criminal justice experts in the north are tracking the debate over the bill that could legally force the security services to reveal the full truth of what they know before public inquiries and other investigations.
The exhibition, curated by the University of Liverpool’s Centre for People’s Justice, “shines a light on some of the most devastating disasters and scandals over the past century”, the organisers said.
St Comgall’s on the Falls Road will host the exhibition for two days in late March.
Apart from Bloody Sunday and the Chinook crash, the exhibition also focuses on the Post Office scandal, where multiple people were convicted of fraud because of the faulty computer system, and the response to Covid 19.
Lagan Valley Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood is pushing for the Chinook crash to be a test case for the new law, said Ms Rawcliffe, the sister of Major Dockerty, a 34-yearold British Army intelligence officer.
The Chinook Justice Campaign is pushing via a judicial of review for the Ministry of Defence to reveal all over the decisions that led to the flight taking off in June 1994 and are calling for a public inquiry.
For years, the crash was blamed on pilot error, a position only reversed in 2011, while some documents have been sealed for 100 years.
“The whole point about the Hillsborough Law is that those questioned have to tell the truth and cannot hide,” said Ms Rawcliffe.
“The intelligence services have to be part of that under the ‘duty of candour’.”
Hiding behind ‘pilot error’
She added: “If (the RAF and Ministry of Defence) had had to answer to the first inquiry the questions put to them it would have been obvious they could not have hid behind pilot error.”
In relation to documents still being withheld, Ms Rawcliffe said it was her understanding they would first be viewed by a judge and not immediately be available to the public.
Ms Rawcliffe’s brother was an infantry intelligence officer in the Prince of Wales. He was due to be married in September 1994 to a partner during a previous tour of Northern Ireland.
Their 96-year-old father, Ms Rawcliffe said, “just wants to get to the bottom of it and be given the answer around why Chris should never have left the ground”.
“He is pleased we are asking the questions and trying to get the answers,” she added.
The talk tomorrow will be presented by Lee Castleton OBE, a former sub post master and victim of the Post Office scandal.
Mr Castleton is a founding member of the Justice for Sub-postmasters Alliance (JFSA).
He was played by Will Mellor in the ITV drama ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’.
Professor Helen Stalford, principal convenor of the Centre for People’s Justice, will also summarise the proposed content, scope and potential impact of the new Hillsborough Law.
Dissident republican group ÓNH claims responsibility for north Belfast shooting
CONNLA YOUNG CRIME AND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
A REPUBLICAN paramilitary group has said it shot a man in north Belfast last week.
In a statement, Óglaigh na hÉireann (ÓNH) claimed it was responsible for shooting the victim once in each leg in the Strathroy Park area of Ardoyne at around 8pm last Tuesday.
While the man’s injuries were serious, they are not thought to be life-threatening. It is understood the victim, aged in his thirties, was held by the paramilitary group for a time before he was shot.
Using a recognised codeword, ÓNH has also issued a threat against three men they claimed are associates of the victim.
While ‘punishment-style’ gun attacks carried out by paramilitary groups have been rare in recent years, they continue to be carried out sporadically.
In recent years, ÓNH has been linked to a string of gun and other attacks against alleged drug dealers.
Before Christmas the group said it left 11 pipe bombs across counties Armagh, Antrim and Derry and threatened to take further action against alleged dealers, claiming it was going to target “luxury cars” and homes with incendiary devices.
In 2024 the republican group threatened to target the Co Armagh crime gang known as ‘The Firm’.
ÓNH has been linked to the murder of several suspected drug dealers, including Jim Donegan in 2018 and Sean Fox in 2022, both in west Belfast.
The republican group is currently locked in a bitter feud. It turned violent last February when Belfast man Sean O’Reilly, a senior figure in Republican Network for Unity, was shot and injured as he sat in a taxi in the Poleglass area.
Alliance Party Policing Board member Peter McReynolds said last week’s shooting was “a shocking act of violence”.
“There is absolutely no place for guns or violence on our streets and my thoughts are with the individual who was attacked,” he said.
“I want to thank the PSNI for the increase in their presence in the area and helping the local community who are understandably shaken by this.”
‘Delivery is challenging but progress being made’
MICHELLE O’NEILL FIRST MINISTER
PLATFORM
Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
FROM the first day this Executive was appointed, my commitment was to stand up for you, defend public services, pay workers a fair wage and fight back against the ongoing British government austerity.
And two years on, I remain committed to leading the Executive in this fight as we look at transforming our public services and delivering for workers, families and communities.
Delivery is not easy or straight forward given the combined challenges of British government underfunding and our unique, some might say abnormal, system of government
Despite British government claims that we receive enough funding, this ignores decades of systemic underfunding.
Cuts and policy decisions by successive British governments have undermined our ability to deliver better public services.
In spite of the challenges and the obvious limitations, Sinn Féin ministers will remain fully focused on delivering for communities and public services in the remaining year of this mandate.
Need for Multi-year Budget
Agreeing on a multi-year budget for the first time in a decade is central to this.
This would give departments certainty, allowing them to better plan and prepare and ensure they can move forward with confidence and deliver on improving people’s lives.
Working in a four-party Executive, alongside parties that hold diametrically different positions on many issues, is challenging to say the least.
Too often progress has been stalled, slowed or vetoed. Some ministers have blatantly pursued a divisive and at times partisan agenda.
Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly and First Minister Michelle O’Neill
People have expressed frustration with this approach. And I understand that. However, my focus is acting in the common good – bringing people together, not deepening divisions.
The Good Friday Agreement gave expression to all traditions. Equality and inclusion remain the litmus test.
Despite the challenges, limitations and setbacks, there has been progress made on a range of issues.
Over £1 billion extra for public services. Thousands more pre-school places. An action plan to restore Lough Neagh. Significant cuts to health waiting lists. Greater investment in the north west and other areas west of the Bann historically neglected by previous Economy Ministers. Protections for the Irish language including a dedicated commissioner. Progress towards 10,000 students at Magee University. Prioritisation of the strategy to end violence against women and girls.
Progress on these issues shows what can be delivered, even in an environment that at times makes it difficult. And there is much more to be done.
Of course, Sinn Féin does not accept the shortcomings of our current political, financial and constitutional arrangements.
The Good Friday Agreement provides the mechanism for a new, agreed and united Ireland where decisions are made, not in London, but by the people of this island and in the interests of the people of this island.
More and more people from every walk of life are looking beyond the current political arrangements and the negative influence of London.
Once again, many people are ahead of the politics and looking towards a better future in a united and new Ireland.
For me, there is no contradiction in leading the Executive and also encouraging and engaging in that growing debate.
Unity referendum
The Irish and British governments should begin planning for a unity referendum to ensure that the decision is properly informed.
Leadership is about delivering in the here and now and also setting out a vision for the future.
The Good Friday Agreement provides the pathway to that future.
And as I continue to work to make that happen, I am firmly committed to delivering for workers, families and communities, all communities.
Government should always have people’s backs and must always strive to deliver more. That remains my firm commitment.
'We can have much better than current Stormont dysfunction'
Matthew O’Toole, Belfast Telegraph, February 3rd, 2026
COMMENT
A lot can happen in two years, but next to nothing meaningful has happened at Stormont in the two years since the Executive was restored.
That Executive's formation itself was nearly two years delayed following the DUP's nihilistic boycott, but the new government was supposed to be shaped by two historic developments: the first ever nationalist-designated First Minister in Michelle O'Neill, and a doubling in Alliance Party representation.
The public, perhaps especially voters who opted for those historic developments, had a right to expect better. They didn't expect an overnight transformation in broken public services, but they did deserve a clear and coherent plan with targets and timelines. A list of deliverable priorities and a government collectively committed to delivering them.
Instead, after a few months of superficial warmth with supporting Michelle/Emma photo ops, the two leading parties have descended into the dysfunctional, but politically useful, theatre of endless distracting rows.
The Programme for Government, when eventually published, was long on vague waffle and short on clear outcomes. One of the very few reasonably clear targets — on social house building — is being missed by a wide margin.
Zero Progress
In terms of new laws, the sound of tumbleweed has drowned out the sound of legislative debate. Indeed, Stormont has barely debated any legislation. Last week we spent just nine minutes debating actual law while the governing parties filled time with non-binding motions with no legal effect.
Meanwhile, parties like Sinn Fein claim credit for a vital workers' rights law which is months overdue and has not actually been published.
The Alliance Party appears to have made zero progress on using its expanded powers to achieve long-promised and urgently-needed laws on environmental protection and hate crime. The DUP, true to form, mostly contents itself with blocking things.
But here's the thing: it doesn't have to be like this. I've now been leading the official Opposition for two years, and I'm conscious of the need not just to provide robust criticism, but offer clear and practical alternatives. And to provide the public with some hope things can be better than they are.
And they can be: our problems are deep but not impossible. How can we hope to build a new Ireland if we're not committed to building a better Northern Ireland along the way?
A poll last week showed barely one in four people believes the Executive has improved their lives since its return. We need to start by rebuilding trust in the public that politics can be about the common good rather than the narrow interest of big parties.
The SDLP has produced an achievable set of reform proposals which will make it harder to collapse government here but also ensure ministers are obliged produce a focused programme with real targets on improving people's lives: reducing health waiting lists, building affordable homes, reducing child poverty. And then ensure the Executive is properly measured on delivery.
Building accountability
That also means building a culture of accountability. At the minute, ministers act with brazen indifference when challenged on their record.
Gordon Lyons has now been found to have breached the ministerial code twice, but has reacted with contempt when challenged on it.
John O'Dowd arrogantly told MLAs last week they had no idea what they were talking about when they dared ask him about a rates revaluation which was likely to shut pubs and hospitality venues. Three days later he U-turned. It's clear we have a problem with ministers hating accountability. Part of the SDLP's job in Opposition is driving forward change in that culture.
To be clear: the big parties will resist such changes. The current set-up may be driving the public to despair and disengagement, but this suits both Sinn Fein and the DUP because it helps guarantee that elections are not about delivery, but division.
Things aren't good, but they can be good. We don't have to be defeated by division and dysfunction. We can build something better. We can build something new.
Matthew O'Toole MLA is SDLP leader of the Opposition
Is the price of Self-Government too high?
LETTERS: Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
Stormont has just made revenue raising politically impossible
STORMONT’S latest farce isn’t really about business rates, it’s about whether Northern Ireland still has a functioning government.
Finance Minister John O’Dowd’s abrupt u-turn on Reval2026 – just 72 hours after robustly defending it – will be remembered as more than an embarrassing climbdown. It marks a dangerous turning point: the moment the Executive demonstrated that it cannot withstand pressure when faced with politically difficult decisions.
Anyone watching closely will have drawn an obvious conclusion. If a major fiscal policy can be reversed in three days following intense lobbying, then any future ‘revenue-raising’ initiative can be challenged, delayed and ultimately defeated by those with the loudest voices or the deepest networks. That is not democratic accountability. It is paralysis.
Stormont already struggles to make decisions. Now it has confirmed that it won’t even stand over the ones it does make.
This matters because Northern Ireland faces unavoidable choices.
“Stormont already struggles to make decisions. Now it has confirmed that it won’t even stand over the ones it does make
Our water infrastructure is collapsing; Lough Neagh is choking under pollution; health reform has stalled more than a decade after Bengoa; roads are deteriorating; and public services are underfunded – yet the Executive refuses to confront how they will be paid for.
You cannot fix any of this without asking someone, somewhere, to pay more.
Yet the lesson from the O’Dowd u-turn is clear – if a policy is unpopular, it will not survive. Organised interests now know that Stormont blinks. Future ministers know it too.
The result is predictable. Ministers will avoid bold proposals altogether. Civil servants will default to caution. Executive parties will continue disowning their own decisions and the gap between promises and delivery will widen still further.
All of this is unfolding while the Assembly barely functions as a legislature at all. This year, MLAs have spent just nine minutes debating Stormont legislation in the chamber – nine minutes. Meanwhile, time has been found to debate reality TV shows, Donald Trump, Blue Monday, flags, Venezuela and anything else that fills space without requiring responsibility.
Legislation – the very reason the Assembly exists – is increasingly absent. The Executive is not governing; it is marking time.
Stormont’s defenders will say the rates reversal shows politics “working”. It doesn’t. Politics works when governments listen and then decide. What we saw instead was a government that decided, defended, panicked and reversed – all in less than a week. That is not responsiveness, it is weakness.
The deeper danger is this: Northern Ireland now has a government that wants to spend more money, refuses to raise more money and cannot survive the political cost of either choice. That is not a sustainable position for any administration – especially one already suffering a crisis of public confidence.
Stormont cannot go on like this. It is a broken and directionless administration whose rambling incoherence has become unbearable to watch. Each u-turn doesn’t relieve the pressure, it increases it, making the next hard decision even harder.
If the Executive cannot govern, cannot legislate and cannot hold its nerve, then survival alone is no longer success. It is simply failure stretched out over time.
EUGENE REID Ballymena, Co Antrim
TUV’s suspension from Assembly a ‘political witch hunt’
REBECCA BLACK and CLAUDIA SAVAGE, Belfast Telegraph, February 3rd, 2026
A TUV MLA has been barred from the Assembly for two days after he was found to have breached the members' code of conduct.
A complaint was made against North Antrim representative Timothy Gaston following a meeting of the Executive Office committee on October 23, 2024.
There were tense scenes between Mr Gaston and committee chairwoman Paula Bradshaw around an allegation that Ms Bradshaw met First Minister Michelle O'Neill before she appeared at the committee to give evidence.
Ms O'Neill had been under fire following criticism of Sinn Fein over its handling of a number of controversies, including that of former press officer Michael McMonagle, who was convicted of attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.
As exchanges at the committee became more heated, Mr Gaston said to Ms Bradshaw: “Take a step back. You're OK, you're OK. Breathe.”
He said he apologised at the time, acknowledging his comments were “ill-judged”, and added he believed that had been the end of the matter.
In December 2024, Mr Gaston made a complaint against Ms Bradshaw, but the standards commissioner found it was “inadmissible”.
Meanwhile, the PSNI has confirmed that it received correspondence concerning an allegation of misconduct in public office in October 2024. It said inquiries remain ongoing.
After a debate in the Stormont chamber yesterday, 77 MLAs voted, with 46 voting for and 31 against the motion to suspend Mr Gaston.
He will not be permitted to sit for plenary sessions in the Assembly today and next Monday.
Former independent Assembly commissioner for standards Dr Melissa McCullough, who investigated the complaint, concluded that Mr Gaston had breached rule 15 of the code.
She found he had engaged in behaviour that constituted an “unreasonable and excessive personal attack” on Ms Bradshaw.
The commissioner determined that Mr Gaston had breached rule 13, when his conduct at the meeting amounted to “improper interference with the performance of the Assembly's functions”.
She also found that he breached rule 10 when he failed to comply with the Assembly's “policy, guidance or instructions” by displaying unprofessional behaviour and discourtesy contrary to its behaviour code.
The committee on standards and privileges upheld the complaint and recommended Mr Gaston be sanctioned by being excluded from Assembly proceedings for two sitting days.
Committee chairwoman Cathy Mason MLA said its members were “firmly of the view that Mr Gaston's behaviour was inconsistent with the standards required”.
TUV leader Jim Allister claimed there is a “virtual political witch-hunt” against Mr Gaston.
“It frankly demeans this Assembly by arriving at the conclusion that if someone says something which might have been ill-judged but certainly was not unreasonable, and certainly was not a personal attack, that that person and their constituents should be robbed of their services for two sitting days of the Assembly,” he said.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said he believed the findings of the commissioner were “irrational”. He said the idea that asking someone to breathe would “lead to the political suffocation of an elected representative for two days” was “intolerable”.
Starmer faces calls to strip Mandelson of his peerage
DAVID HUGHES, Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
KEIR Starmer is facing calls to strip Lord Mandelson of his peerage and order a full official investigation into his conduct after further details emerged of his links with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Former ambassador to the US Lord Mandelson resigned his membership of the Labour Party after the authorities in Washington released millions of documents relating to the late Epstein.
In an email exchange from 2009, Lord Mandelson, then the business secretary, appeared to tell Epstein he would lobby ministers about a tax on bankers’ bonuses.
Bank statements from 2003 and 2004 appeared to show he received payments totalling 75,000 US dollars (£54,735) from the financier and Epstein is also said to have paid for an osteopathy course for Lord Mandelson’s husband.
The emails released by the US Department of Justice also show Epstein was sent internal discussions from the top of the UK government in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said: “Enough is enough. We need a full Cabinet Office investigation into how Mandelson and his husband took money from the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein while he was a Labour minister, and why Mandelson was appointed ambassador in the first place.”
Lord Mandelson has been on a leave of absence from the Lords since he was appointed ambassador to the US.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said he should be stripped of his peerage – something that would require a new law.
He suggested Lord Mandelson should retire from the upper chamber while the process of legally removing his peerage was conducted.
Sir Ed said: “It’s time now for the Government to take immediate action by bringing forward legislation to strip Peter Mandelson of his peerage. It is the very least they can do for the victims and survivors of his friend Jeffrey Epstein.”
Lord Peter Mandelson resigned from the Labour Party late on Sunday
Legislation has been used before to strip titles, notably members of the nobility who were on the German side in the First World War.
Mary McAleese is no 'a la carte' Catholic, but reformer stuck in a sexist church
MALACHI O'DOHERTY, Belfast Telegraph, February 3rd, 2026
Mary McAleese wants to change the Catholic church and that's hardly surprising. It's an archaic institution that I left long ago for a variety of reasons, most of them to do with sex and sexuality. I am a heterosexual male who enjoyed pre-marital relationships and the benefits of artificial contraception.
The church that I was baptised into decided, 15 years after my baptism, that using condoms or the pill was a sin and my baptism obliged me to accept that ruling.
Of course, none of this much affected my acquaintances with Catholic clergy and friends who stayed within the church because generally they didn't take seriously those new rules, or many of the old ones.
They were 'a la carte' Catholics.
That is to say, they turned up, got what comfort they could from religious practice and a sense of being part of a community and didn't fuss too much about the rest of it.
I have seen many significant critics of the church buried within its fold.
Mary McAleese is not an a la carte Catholic. She is a reformer.
She doesn't want to set aside the absurdities of the Catholic church as if they were irrelevant to her. She speaks up plainly about what appals her.
She disagrees with the church's teaching on contraception and the demeaning role accorded to women, barring them from not just the priesthood but also the diaconate.
With the fall in recruits to the priesthood, there has been an increase in the number of men ordained as deacons. They look like priests, talk like priests, preach like priests and do much of the work of priests but they can not officiate at the Eucharist, the rite by which the bread and wine is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Jesus. And many of them are married.
A visit from a Deacon
When I recently had an overnight hospital stay I was visited by a deacon, an affable and decent man from west Belfast whose concern for my wellbeing I much appreciated. Had he whisked out a little Eucharist wafer for me I would have politely declined.
I do find myself at Mass occasionally, mostly for funerals and I appreciate the sense of community that a church reinforces. I similarly find myself occasionally at funerals in other traditions, Christian, humanist, secular, Hindu.
Mary McAleese says the church of today is as dogged as ever in its refusal to ordain women or allow them to be deacons.
With that calamitous fall in recruitment of men to the priesthood, this is the obvious solution to a staffing problem. There are women who want to do this work and who, like McAleese, resent being barred from these roles by a cabal of celibate old men. And she is becoming more strident in this, recently having declared that she believes that the promises made on behalf of a baby at baptism are an infringement of the child's human rights.
She got a lot of criticism for that but her point was part of a larger argument that the church was negligent in its commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is a serious matter.
But if she is not happy that the church refuses to deploy women in clerical roles there may be a solution. For there is another church across the street which does.
Suggesting that Mary McAleese become an Anglican is not as radical as suggesting that she become a Buddhist or a Muslim. They would love to have her and there are, no doubt, congregations within the Church of Ireland where she would find no friction with her religious beliefs.
Divisive beliefs
The one dividing principle would be the divine authority of the Pope. But if she actually believes in that she should stop criticising the office holder.
As for delicate matters like transubstantiation and the perpetual virginity of Mary the mother of Jesus, well there is no rule against members of the Church of Ireland believing these things.
There are little cultural differences. A friend who has left the Presbyterian Church in protest against its attitude to gays says she isn't comfortable in the Catholic church because they don't sing as much as she'd like to, and when they do sing they mutter and most don't join in.
Mary McAleese would be expected to sing loud and clear. But in return she could be not just a deacon or priest but, in time, a bishop, even Primate of All Ireland.
She must have thought about this.
What is keeping her in a church whose chauvinistic sexism she resents so boldly?
Perhaps it is that sense of community, the familiarity of the neighbours and friends she sits beside in the pews but sometimes you just have to leave a club whose rules are framed without consideration for what matters most to you.
And what a significant gesture it would be, what a massive symbolic riposte to our sectarian ways if she crossed that road.
The pope was so sorry to hear of my pain and for my family’s pain’
Patsy McGarry, Irish Times, February 3rd, 2026
Blackrock College abuse survivor receives apology in meeting with Leo
For David Ryan, Monday, February 2nd, 2026, will live long in his memory. “What an experience. I’ll never forget it, never, never forget it,” he said.
It was the day a pope apologised to him personally for the abuse he, his late brother Mark and their friend Aidan Moore suffered as children at the Spiritan-run Blackrock College in Dublin and its preparatory school Willow Park. He had also told the pope about the abuse he suffered as a child at the Jesuit-run St Declan’s School on Dublin’s Northumberland Road.
“I told him that it took me 40 years to realise it wasn’t my fault, it was their fault,” he said.
He felt the pope’s “sympathy, his empathy for survivors, for myself and for my family and my close friends. He felt it and he was sorry”.
Ryan was the first Irish abuse survivor to meet Pope Leo XIV and, accompanied by a photograph of Mark (62) who died suddenly in September 2023, he told of what the abuse had done to all their families.
He was able to tell all of this in a private audience to the head of the Catholic Church. It was, he said afterwards, “an emotional but very powerful experience”.
Pope Leo had already listened to the RTÉ Radio 1 documentary Blackrock Boys, broadcast in November 2022, and read its transcript.
It told the story of the abuse David and Mark Ryan suffered at the secondary school and Willow Park, which prompted a flood of further allegations from other men who had also suffered at the two schools. These allegations were followed by hundreds more from men who attended other schools across Ireland, many of them also religious-run.
Tough Questions
Ryan presented the pope with six questions he wanted answers to but did not feel it appropriate to say what those questions were, just yet. Last week, he said these would be “tough questions” about how “the Catholic Church had pushed the abuse issue under the carpet for so long”. However, yesterday he asked the pope: “Why are these priests still doing it?” [abusing people and covering it up].
Before the audience with the pope, he was very nervous. “I was bricking it.” Then “I told him how I lived and worked in Fethard [Co Tipperary], where he had been in 2005”, marking the 700th anniversary of the Augustinians in the town, and soon “it was the same as I’m talking to you now”.
The pope “was so sorry to hear of my pain, for my family’s pain and for the other survivors that haven’t come forward yet”. What stood out was his “sincerity, his empathy”.
Ryan believed his brother Mark “would be so proud”. In 2022, after Blackrock Boys was broadcast, he said to his brother: “We should send it to the pope. Mark said, ‘Are you mad?’ I said, ‘I am deadly serious. He has to hear about Blackrock and the Spiritans.’
“It was left on the back-burner, then Mark died.”
In 2024, he sent the programme to Pope Francis, who was arranging a meeting when he got sick and also died. So, when Leo had settled in after his election last May, Ryan contacted him. The rest was, well, yesterday.
Deirdre Kenny of the One in Four support group joined the audience for “about 10 minutes”. Both were offered gifts of rosary beads, which Leo blessed. As it was St Brigid’s weekend, Ryan presented the pope with a lapel pin of a St Brigid’s cross.
Later, he met Irish Ambassador to the Holy See Frances Collins for “an informal chat”.
Tomorrow, he will meet new Minister for Education and Youth
Holy See and the Irish church to be added to Finegan action
CONNLA YOUNG CRIME AND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, February 3rd, 2026
THE Holy See and Catholic Church leaders in Ireland are be added to ongoing legal action after concerns were raised about the ‘financial uncertainty’ of the Diocese of Dromore.
The diocese, which covers parts of counties Antrim, Down and Armagh, has asked a court for guidance on managing its dwindling assets.
The diocese has been in the spotlight over its handling of former priest and child sex abuser Malachy Finegan.
An ex-president of St Colman’s College in Newry, Finegan abused boys under his care and later did so as parish priest of Clonduff in Hilltown, Co Down. To date, millions have been paid out by the diocese to Finegan’s victims.
Legal representatives say they now intend to include the Archdiocese of Armagh and the Holy See, which is led by Pope Leo, to ongoing legal action.
It has now emerged lawyers for the Catholic Church have filed an application for directions with the Chancery Court on behalf of the Dioceses of Dromore Trustee “arising from material uncertainty regarding its finances”.
The diocese trustee holds all assets of its parishes, which includes churches, church halls, cemeteries and parochial houses.
There are currently 23 parishes and 48 churches in Dromore, which has an estimated Catholic population of around 65,000.
Legal correspondence confirms that since 2018, the Diocese of Dromore Trustee “has taken numerous measures to liquidate, or otherwise realise all other assets available for the benefit of the diocese, ie, assets that are not the parish assets within the trust for the purpose of providing fair compensation to claimants for historical clerical abuse”. Last month church authorities agreed the sale of the Bishop’s House in Newry.
The sale of associated land remains pending.
‘Rome has very, very deep pockets’
In 2018, former Bishop of Dromore John McAreavey stood down over criticism of how he dealt with Finegan.
The diocese’s current apostolic administrator is Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Solicitor Kevin Winters, of KRW Law, said: “We now have the unenviable task of fielding distressed calls from clients wondering where their cases now sit following the outworkings of this Diocesan fiscal debacle.”
Mr Winters said church leaders in the Vatican and Armagh will now be added to ongoing legal proceedings.
“Lateral legal steps are now underway including applications to join the Archdiocese and The Holy See to all extant legal actions,” he said.
“The Diocese of Dromore might claim to have empty pockets to pay its victims but the church hierarchy in Rome has very, very deep pockets to meet its legal liabilities – we now call on the church to do the right thing and assuage anxieties by committing its rich reserves to sorting survivors out in their claims.”
The Catholic Church was contacted.
Support and opposition voiced as QUB severs ties with George Mitchell
By Adam Kula, Philip Bradfield, and PA, Belfast News Letter. February 2nd, 2026
Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) is to remove the name of one of the architects of the Good Friday Agreement from a peace centre because of his links with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein – a move that has drawn support and opposition.
It has been criticised by Eoghan Harris, former speechwriter to David Trimble, and ex-SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell.
UUP peer Lord Empey however said that Epstein was so “toxic” that anyone associated with him will rightly have their judgement questioned, adding that Queen’s had acted “swiftly and decisively”.
A bust of former US senator George Mitchell will also be removed from the university grounds.
The move comes a day after the US-Ireland Alliance said the George J Mitchell Scholarship Programme would no longer bear his name.
The developments follow the release of millions of files relating to Epstein, including further references to an earlier claim Mr Mitchell had sex with Epstein victim, Virginia Giuffre (something Mr Mitchell strongly denies).
Mr Mitchell chaired the peace talks that culminated in the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
Chancellor of QUB 1999-2009
He was also QUB chancellor for a decade.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor.
A Queen’s spokesperson said: “Queen’s University Belfast has taken the decision to remove the name of its former chancellor, Senator George J Mitchell, from the Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and to remove the bust commemorating him from the university campus.
“This decision follows the emergence of new information contained in the Epstein files released on Friday, which include references to senator Mitchell.
“While no findings of wrongdoing by senator Mitchell have been made, the university has concluded that, in light of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name.”
But Mr Harris said QUB had rushed to judgment.
“Shame on Queen’s University and the US-Ireland Alliance (whoever they are) for appearing to join a rush to judge and even smear Senator George Mitchell,” he said.
“Sad to think that Mitchell gave such a big part of his life for peace only to get such bad treatment at this stage in his life, condemned by weasel words on the flimsiest of evidence by nationalist QUB and Irish Americans whom I think of as academic careerists.”
Also speaking out was ex-SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell, who wrote: “God bless George Mitchell, we all owe him so much.
"I know George, I watched him work close up.”
He added that “Queen’s used and abused him for their advantage and now try to discard him”.
On Sunday, the US-Ireland Alliance also said that the George J Mitchell Scholarship Programme would no longer bear his name.
The scholarship sends US students to the Republic and NI and was set up to honour Mr Mitchell for his work.
The latest release of documents relating to Epstein by the US government shows a continued relationship between Mitchell and Epstein, for some five years following Epstein's conviction.
This includes emails as well as memos with appointments scheduled between the pair.
Some five years after Epstein’s conviction, Mitchell emailed him (in November 2013) saying they were due to meet, as shown by the entry, “10:30am Appt w/Senator George Mitchell”, the BBC reported.
Sex trafficking
Epstein was arrested in New York in 2019 on sex trafficking charges.
He killed himself while awaiting trial.
A spokesperson for Mr Mitchell told the BBC yesterday: “Senator Mitchell profoundly regrets ever having known Jeffrey Epstein and condemns, without reservation, the horrific harm Epstein inflicted on so many women.”
They said Mr Mitchell did not at any time observe, suspect or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in “illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women”.
UUP peer Lord Empey said: “Reports that Senator Mitchell had an association with the disgraced financier and paedophile Jeffrey Epstein are profoundly disturbing.
"While the Senator denies any wrongdoing, he must know that such a relationship is deemed toxic by the public on both sides of the Atlantic.
"We must remember first and foremost that young women, many of them in their teens, were trafficked and abused by Epstein and many of his friends.
"It is their suffering that must be uppermost in our minds and not the damage to the reputations of politicians or businessmen.
"Like many of your readers, I have a daughter and granddaughters, and the whole Epstein saga has been ghastly and disgusting.
“He must know that until the full details of the degree of Epstein’s crimes and corruption are fully exposed (I believe more is to come) and understood, then the judgement of anybody associated with him, however tangentially, will rightly be called into question.
"That Queen’s University and the US-Ireland Alliance have acted so swiftly and decisively proves my point.”
Givan launches RE review – but focus still on Christianity
By Philip Bradfield, Belfast News Letter, February 3rd, 2026
Education Minister Paul Givan has responded to a landmark Supreme Court judgement on religion in schools by saying he has no plans to change school worship - and that Christianity will continue to provide "the core focus for RE in Northern Ireland".
Announcing a comprehensive review of Religious Education (RE) in light of the judgement, he said that schools can continue to be teach RE lawfully in the meantime – if "additional, objective, critical and pluralistic material” is added to the existing core syllabus.
The review has been welcomed by both the three main Protestant churches and the Northern Ireland Humanists, which did however call for “a full review” of collective worship
The Northern Ireland Humanists broadly welcomed the plans, but called for “a full review” of collective worship
In November the Supreme Court found the provision of RE in NI schools does not does not approach the subject in an “objective, critical and pluralist manner”.
The case was brought by a Belfast primary pupil (JR87) whose parents objected when her school taught her how to say grace before meals. The court found this crossed the line from education into "indoctrination".
However the judgement also said "Christianity is the most important religion in Northern Ireland" and affirmed that both RE and assemblies should continue to focus primarily on it.
Education Minister Peter Givan wrote to schools soon after, telling schools “that both Religious Education and collective worship continue to be a legal requirement” and affirmed the Supreme court's judgement that both assemblies and RE should continue to focus on the Christian faith.
Today he announced a comprehensive response to the judgment, including plans for legislation to ensure "robust, transparent and accountable" inspection of RE in all schools.
No plans to change collective worship in schools
There are no plans to change arrangements for collective worship in all schools, he said.
The review of the RE Curriculum will be led by Professor Noel Purdy of Stranmillis College Belfast and Joyce Logue, former Principal of Long Tower Primary School in Londonderry.
They will be supported by an expert group of teachers from all sectors and will engage with churches, teachers, school leaders, parents and young people.
Mr Givan said: “The Review launched today will develop a revised RE syllabus that is academically robust, modern in outlook and fully consistent with the Supreme Court judgment. Following full public consultation, I anticipate bringing forward new regulations in autumn 2026, with the new syllabus implemented from September 2027.”
He added: “Given our historical, cultural and legal foundations, it is right that Christianity continues to provide the core focus for RE in Northern Ireland,” he said.
Professor Purdy said he was “delighted” to lead the review adding that he was confident that working with stakeholders across NI, they can “develop an academically robust RE curriculum that prepares children and young people for life in modern society”.
The Transferor Representatives’ Council (TRC), representing the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist Churches, welcomed the minister’s announcement.
As they handed much of the school estate into state care mid-20th century, they retain much legal influence in the controlled sector.
They had been pressing the minister for an RE review for years as they believed the subject must be updated to help children understand a more pluralist society. However they said the minister had been awaiting the outcome of the legal challenge.
The TRC also said they had also been asking for RE to be part of the general inspection process in schools, and that they welcomed clarification on the right of withdrawal from worship and RE.
Northern Ireland Humanists Coordinator Boyd Sleator commented: “We welcome the Minister’s announcement that the writing of the RE syllabus in Northern Ireland will no longer be controlled by the four largest Christian churches, but will now be subject to a full review led by education professionals. This is the right step forward to making sure young people are given a broad, balanced, and pluralistic RE, and we look forward to engaging with the review process.
“While the announced changes to collective worship are also welcome, changes to the withdrawal process only go so far in resolving the wider issue. The Supreme Court was clear that withdrawal was insufficient, and in our view a full review of the requirement is still needed.”
