DUP rejects TUV claims Executive has lost control of ‘solo runs’ by ministers
The DUP has rejected TUV claims that the assembly lost legal powers to prevent ministerial ‘solo runs’ in 2020.
The claims came to the fore in yesterday’s News Letter in the wake of Sinn Fein’s Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins deciding to erect Irish language signage in Belfast Grand Central Station six months after it opened at a cost of around £145,000.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson had emailed his party members to say it was “clearly a controversial matter” and that his party will put a “marker” down at Stormont to block Sinn Fein spending money on “pet projects”.
However, as Sinn Fein is unlikely to allow the matter to go to a vote, the only other option open to the DUP may be a legal challenge.
But speaking in the assembly on Monday, TUV MLA Timothy Gaston pressed the DUP on whether they had lost the power to challenge ministerial solo runs.
“It is time for unionism to unitedly take a stand for the loyalists of south Belfast,” Mr Gaston said.
However, the DUP has now rejected the TUV claim.
A DUP spokesman said: “There has been no change in the test for controversial or significant matters requiring to be brought to the executive, as confirmed in the recent ‘Gas Caverns’ judgment.”
In December the Supreme Court refused an application by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) for permission to appeal a ruling on the gas storage caverns project in Co Antrim.
Daera had gone directly to the UK's highest court after their request to appeal to it was rejected by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.
In June, campaigners won their judicial review against the plan to construct seven large caverns under Larne Lough.
The Court of Appeal ruled that it was cross-cutting in nature and should have been decided by the executive rather than a single minister.
Meanwhile, SDLP infrastructure spokesperson Mark H Durkan MLA has described the tensions of the Irish language signs as “a manufactured row” which is a distraction from executive failure.
“This is far from the first time we have seen executive parties use a manufactured row around identity issues to distract from their abject failure in government,” he said.