First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill told the Assembly last October that the individual had made the party chief whip aware of \u201ctheir involvement\u201d in the damage of the portrait of Lord Wallace Browne.<\/p>\n
However, the PPS said a later statement from the chief whip said the individual \u201cmade no admissions\u201d to being at the event and denied any knowledge of the damage.<\/p>\n
At a meeting of The Executive Office Committee at Stormont on Wednesday, TUV MLA Timothy Gaston said the son of North Belfast MLA Car\u00e1l N\u00ed Chuil\u00edn, Naoise O Cuil\u00edn had been \u201cnamed on social media\u201d and questioned whether Ms N\u00ed Chuil\u00edn wished to declare an interest on the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I want to ascertain is, if Ms Cullen (N\u00ed Chuil\u00edn) wants to make a declaration of interest at this stage due to the interest that is around this issue regarding her son, who has been named on social media as being involved in the damage of that portrait,\u201d Mr Gaston said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe second thing I would like to raise is that Junior Minister (Aisling) Reilly will be in attendance today and in light of Naoise\u2019s employment with the Junior Minister at that time, as a translator I understand, does the Junior Minister also need to declare an interest when dealing with this issue?<\/p>\n \u201cThe third issue I would like to raise is relating to the meeting on the 23rd of October, if indeed what we read online is true and it is Ms Cullen\u2019s (N\u00ed Chuil\u00edn) son that is involved in that discussion in here where it was raised by Harry Harvey, and indeed Car\u00e1l interjected in that discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cSo there needs to be clear parameters going forward that if there is family members involved, that the member declares an interest and either takes herself out of the room to make sure the integrity of this committee is maintained, and I have serious concerns of that meeting, that if what we read is true, then there should have been a declaration of interest declared on the 23rd of October and that didn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a failing that was allowed to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, the Sinn F\u00e9in MLA said she had \u201cnothing to declare\u201d and that the issue being raised had nothing to do with the issue to be discussed at the committee, an oral briefing for an inquiry into Mother and Baby Institiutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all Timothy, my name\u2019s N\u00ed Chuil\u00edn and you know it, so I\u2019d just ask that you respectfully address me by my name<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve nothing to declare, absolutely nothing to declare. I\u2019m here to scrutinise in front of us today, draft legislation affecting victims and survivors.<\/p>\n \u201cI have no interest to declare at all, on behalf of myself or anyone else.<\/p>\n \u201cI actually don\u2019t think it\u2019s in the remit of this committee at all, so I just want to put that on the record. I think this committee\u2019s business is on the agenda and others have chosen to add this issue on which has got absolutely nothing to do with victims and survivors of institutional abuse to the mother and baby scandal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TUV MLA Timothy Gaston has used a Stormont committee to name the son of a Sinn F\u00e9in MLA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[110111,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,47,93932,7,8,111322,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-201702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-belfast-city-hall","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-sinn-fein","20":"tag-stormont","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-tuv","24":"tag-world","25":"tag-world-news","26":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115617623583318440","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201702","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=201702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Specialist](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764184810_981_LA7BARQU5FF2LN2SUJ5K526Z2U.jpg\")
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