Sinn Fein Infrastructure Minister admits her department wrote to her party over illegal billboard
The Sinn Fein Minister for Infrastructure has admitted that an illegal billboard in Newry did carry her party's posters - and that her department wrote to her own party office in Newry to press for its removal.
However Infrastructure Minister Liz Kimmins insisted that there was no conflict if interest because it longer carries any party posters.
Her party was accused of erecting the billboard at the Egyptian Arch on the Camlough Road, which in the past displayed Sinn Féin slogans and more recently a message about Palestinian children.
Kimmins, an MLA for Newry and Armagh, said the billboard appeared to be sited across land owned by both her department and privately owned land.
She told the committee that the Department for Infrastructure had twice requested the removal of the billboard - firstly in August 2023 and again in November last year.
However an FOI request by DUP MLA Peter Martin has now revealed that her department had actually written to her own Sinn Fein office to ask for it to be removed.
Mr Martin asked in the assembly today if she had therefore declared a conflict of interest on the matter.
But the Minister said her department sends out a high volume of letters and that she had not been aware of the details.
Confirming they had written to Sinn Fein representatives in Newry regarding the removal of unauthorized advertisements, she added: "This was routine operational correspondence undertaken by my officials, and as the remit of my department is extensive and a very large volume of correspondence is issued and received on a daily basis, it is not something that I'd issue myself."
There is currently no Sinn Fein material at the site, she said, and therefore she did not declare a conflict of interest.
But Mr Martin drew attention to the fact that when she addressed the matter in the assembly last month, she had insisted there was no Sinn Fein billboard.
He asked then why her departmental officials wrote to her own Sinn Fein constituency office in Newry and her party colleague Sinn Fein MP Dara Hughes to have it removed?
But the minister insisted he had got his timeline wrong - insisting there was no Sinn Fein poster on the billboard during last month's debate.