Vandalised portrait row: SF junior minister quizzed over invite and free tickets to Belfast City Hall event
A Stormont committee has agreed to request any documents relating to an invitation to a Sinn Fein junior minister to an event at Belfast City Hall, during which a portrait was vandalised.
Aisling Reilly declined to answer questions on the matter, amid DUP claims that she had been invited in her role as an Executive Office (TEO) junior minister, and that free tickets had also been offered by organisers.
In October 2024, during an event in City Hall held by Irish language group Glór na Móna, a portrait of a former DUP lord mayor was vandalised. This week, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) said no charges would be brought over the incident due to a lack of evidence.
DUP MLA Phillip Brett told Stormont’s TEO committee that information released earlier this week by the PPS on the matter “stinks to high heaven of a political cover-up”.
Mr Brett asked Aisling Reilly if she has been invited to the event in her capacity as a junior minister. Ms Reilly said that the line of questioning was “crass” given that she had been invited to discuss her department’s legislation on mother and baby institutions.
“You received an invitation as junior minister to attend that event. Is that correct”, Mr Brett asked. Ms Reilly responded: “I can confirm chair that I attended the event as a gaeligore [Irish language speaker] and as a West Belfast MLA.
Asked again if she had received an invitation to attend as junior minister, the SF MLA said “Chair, the badgering” and repeated her position that she had attended as an Irish speaker and MLA – adding “I did not attend the event as junior minister”.
Mr Brett claimed there was an “attempt by Sinn Fein to try and shut this down” and said one of the reasons that a prosecution for criminal damage was not possible was because there was not a list of attendees. He said he believed that “might be in the possession of the Executive Office and received by the junior minister”.
Mr Brett also claimed that “there was an offer of four free tickets to Sinn Fein for this in her role as junior minister” – and asked if Ms Reilly issued a ticket “to the person responsible for attacking the portrait”. MLAs agreed to request relevant documents from TEO.