Surveillance is increasing at Stormont after “deliberate” attempts to flood toilet facilities.<\/p>\n
TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said he has discovered incidents where sinks have been deliberately blocked and taps left running in toilets at Parliament Buildings.<\/p>\n
He said there have been a number of such incidents in recent weeks in the historic building, which was built in the 1920s, and particularly in male toilets.<\/p>\n
“In one case, the same toilet was flooded a number of times in the same day,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Staff have explained that this is being done deliberately, with sinks blocked and taps left running, even though the sinks don’t have plugs.<\/p>\n
“These incidents are happening in areas that are only open to Assembly pass-holders, that means MLAs, MLA staff, and Assembly staff.<\/p>\n
“Significantly, the public cannot access these areas.”<\/p>\n
Mr Gaston said the situation was “absolutely disgraceful”.<\/p>\n
“Parliament Buildings is supposed to be the seat of government in Northern Ireland, not a playground for vandalism,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The idea that people who work here could be responsible for this sort of behaviour is beyond belief.<\/p>\n
“What makes it worse is that it’s taxpayers who are footing the bill for the damage and clean-up. Every time this happens, it costs public money. At a time when services are under pressure, that is completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n
“If this sort of behaviour occurred in any other workplace, it would be treated as gross misconduct and Stormont should be no different.<\/p>\n
“I very much hope that the guilty party, be they a member of Assembly staff or even an MLA, is brought to book for this vandalism.”<\/p>\n
The Assembly Commission emailed MLAs and Assembly staff earlier this week describing the flooding incidents as a “serious matter that could compromise the safety and operational use of Parliament Buildings”.<\/p>\n
They said they are increasing surveillance across all floors, and urged anyone with information to report it.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Assembly said: “We can confirm that there have been a number of flooding incidents in the toilet areas of Parliament Buildings over the last few months.<\/p>\n
“These incidents have been handled quickly and fortunately, to date, have not resulted in damage or costs.<\/p>\n
“However, this is a serious matter which could compromise the safety and operational use of Parliament Buildings and so, as a result of these incidents, we have increased surveillance across all floors.<\/p>\n
“We have informed building users and asked them to report any incidents they witness to our building services team, be they accidental or intentional.<\/p>\n
“Our priority is to maintain a safe environment for everyone who works in or visits Parliament Buildings.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Surveillance is increasing at Stormont after “deliberate” attempts to flood toilet facilities. TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-156353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115472038831467951","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}