Assembly's 'paper exercise' on McMonagle scandal 'raises questions' for Sinn Fein

Gordon Lyons said public confidence in the institutions had “taken a hammering” on the matter, while the TUV’s Timothy Gaston has described the report itself as a “sham and a whitewash”.

The probe has revealed that Sinn Fein MLAs’ staff have been handled by a centralised HR service provided by the party – and judged that it it “strains credibility” that the party wasn’t aware that he held down a number of jobs until years after the event.

However, the Assembly investigation has apportioned almost all of the blame for the employment scandal on the convicted sex offender himself, contrasting his character to that of the MLAs – including Michelle O’Neill – who employed him.

The scandal over McMonagle began when he was charged with a number of child sex offences, over which he was later convicted. Questions then turned to how he had been handled by Sinn Fein and the Assembly. The News Letter revealed that a pass to access Stormont had not been revoked – and that he had at one stage worked for more than one SF politician at the same time.

The revelations prompted an Assembly investigation into salaries and expenses which has now reported.

The probe – which was a “paper based exercise” and included no interviews with anyone involved – did however give some new insight into how Sinn Fein’s employment practices operate, and said the party “ought to have known” that McMonagle was contracted to work around 80 hours per week.

However, it found that then-deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill was “unlikely” to have been aware of his employment contracts at the point he worked in her office in 2020, during the Covid pandemic.

As revealed by the News Letter last year, for a three month period, Mr McMonagle was employed on a full-time basis by Ms O’Neill and Sinn Fein MP Órfhlaith Begley. The Irish News then revealed that he had also been employed by Sinn Fein centrally – a job which amounted to “some 8-11 hours work each week”, according to the new report.

It has also revealed that Sinn Fein “provided centralised HR services” to MLAs – and says it “strains credibility” that the party wasn’t therefore aware of the various jobs McMonagle held until October 2024. It states that this is something that “ought to have been known to Sinn Féin in 2020, even if, as I think likely, Mr McMonagle misrepresented details of his employments”.

The report adds: “As a matter of common sense, even if an employee set out to deceive both employers, no competent employer could fail to notice an employee working two-full time jobs simultaneously: at best the employee would be providing half the work the employer expected”.

Its remit was to find “the extent to which (if any)” that Sinn Fein employees had “carried out work for a political party rather than the employing Member in their contracted hours”.

​However, some seemingly obvious lines of inquiry were dismissed

For example, speaking to journalists who would have regularly dealt with McMonagle as a press officer handling media queries on behalf of the party, was deemed to be of “no more than anecdotal” value.

The report claimed that the “value of such recollections” compared to the view of the employing MLAs and records held by the Assembly “would be limited”. It is unclear how the Assembly could possibly make that judgement without having spoken to anyone in the media – and how could they could therefore know that any evidence would be no more than anecdotal.

Reacting to the report, DUP communities minister Gordon Lyons said it “brought up a number of questions and that should be looked into”.

“What did people know? How could this have happened? Look, the most important thing is that we have public confidence and public trust in our institutions, and I think that’s certainly taken a hammering over this issue, so, yes, absolutely questions for Sinn Fein to answer.

“We need to make sure that we look at the report, that we look at possible recommendations and possible reform that needs to take place, because we need to make sure that the public has confidence in what we do.”

He added: “I think that Sinn Fein should be answering questions directly. There are a number of questions that come out of the information that was released yesterday. It would be useful to hear from them directly about what they knew and what they understood”.

McMonagle, from Limewood Street in Londonderry, was jailed last year after being found guilty of a series of offences, including attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.

Sinn Féin chief whip in the assembly Sinéad Ennis welcomed the completion of the report on the review.

In a statement she said the reports contains "some positive recommendations which could further improve processes and provide greater clarity for members in employing support staff".

"It is essential that the use of public money is fully accountable, properly scrutinised and that processes in relation to the use of public funds are open and transparent," she added.