Why Northern Ireland’s journalists don’t look so lazy now
DAVID GORDON reports on the work that brought down Northern Ireland Minister Ian Paisley Jnr and helped trigger his father’s dramatic departure from the political scene
POLITICAL pundits are still coming to terms with the fall of the House of Paisley at Stormont, and in their commentaries there is a danger that the central role of freedom of information could be overlooked.
The fact is that Ian Paisley Jnr would still be in his comfortable job as a junior minister in his own father’s office if the Freedom of Information Act were not on the statute books.
The younger Paisley has the distinction of being FoI’s first ministerial scalp in the UK. His resignation in February weakened his First Minister father, Ian Paisley Snr, and helped push him towards the exit door within a matter of days.
Ian Paisley Jr stood down as minister in Northern Ireland’s Office of the First Minister and Deputy, after months of controversy over his lobbying for a developer — and fellow Democratic Unionist Party member — called Seymour Sweeney.
He denied any wrongdoing, and his fall was anything but inevitable; after all, his dad was the boss.
His troubles began last September over a controversial planned development beside the Giant’s Causeway, the dramatic rock formation on the Antrim coast that is Northern Ireland’s top natural attraction. Another DUP minister had given Seymour Sweeney preliminary approval for a visitors’ centre there, horrifying the National Trust, which owns the Causeway.
Ian Paisley Junior went on BBC Radio Ulster to trumpet the Sweeney scheme. Asked about the businessman, the Minister said: “I know of him, yes.” That coyness helped inspire the subsequent onslaught.
It was quickly demonstrated that Paisley Jnr had long-time links with Seymour Sweeney. Some of the revelations came from old-fashioned methods — leaks, official records, tip-offs etc, but FoI disclosures added substantial and crucial weight to the evidence.
One department released details of 13 different occasions when Ian Paisley Jnr had pressed senior officials or British Ministers on the Causeway scheme. Information emerged — again through FoI — of separate lobbying on a massive government land sale plan, again involving Seymour Sweeney. The First Minister himself became embroiled in the “cronyism” story. A letter I obtained under FoI revealed that Ian Paisley Snr had also lobbied in favour of a Sweeney grant application. The First Minister hit back, denouncing the use of the Freedom of Information Act by “lazy journalists”.
Another FOI request accidentally helped bring about the resignation. This involved rental expenses claimed by Assembly members for their constituency offices. The Paisleys’ office was by far the most expensive, prompting investigations by the News Letter and Belfast Telegraph.
It transpired that the rent was going to a firm controlled by Ian Paisley Jnr’s father-in-law and was used to pay off the mortgage for the property. Renting from relatives is permitted under Assembly rules, but Seymour Sweeney was a past director of the firm and had secured the mortgage.
Ian Paisley Jnr stressed that the businessman’s services had been provided free of charge. But senior party colleagues had by this stage run out of patience and his resignation swiftly followed.