Another escape from scrutiny as First Minister runs roughshod over Stormont committee…

I’m putting this up with a minimum of comment. It’s the Stormont Committee for The Executive Office (TEO) which has accumulated 1.7k views within hours of the session finishing. The reason being is that it is utterly shambolic.

At the heart of the spectacle is an odd confusion about committee rules that have in place for 26 years. It’s not actually obvious if anyone on the committee (possibly even including the clerk) understood those rules up to the point they sought legal advice.

If the intention of the legal advice was to clarify things, it didn’t work. Were MLAs constrained in asking the First Minister any question that had a political content (as the FM herself argued), or only to matters relating directly to the TEO as per the clerk?

Or was it Deputy Chair Connie Egan who had the right line when she quietly pointed out in the middle of the chaos that the advice was clear that MLAs could ask any question they deemed fit but that the First Minister could choose not to answer it.

I suspect Egan is right, but it was the First Minister, dressed in now customary Sinn Fein priestly black*, with Carál Ní Cuilín who badgered the chair all the way through cloaked in similar garb, who sprung loose in a latter day, all female “Maze escape”.

Legitimate questions of public interest were shredded and left by the wayside. As Sinead McLoughlin noted in her contribution:

At a time when there are many outstanding questions surrounding Sinn Féin scandals and their handling of recent affairs, what took place today was a disgraceful shutting down of scrutiny,” she said.

“If the committee is not the place for the minister to answer these questions then we must immediately establish the correct forum and compel the minister to respond.” [Emphasis added]

Indeed. Some folks on the hill must ask themselves if this is what scrutiny looks like. It’s all very well saying we need to learn lessons but if all questions are stonewalled on the basis they might embarrass the witness, what lessons are there to learn?

If a Stormont committee cannot ask questions never mind get answers, is it really fit for the purpose it claims to fulfil?

*This is NOT a reference to individual choice but a reference to the fact that both leaders in the north and the south have taken to wearing black in their parliamentary appearances during the current party crisis, not a comment on satorial choice; ie it is a considered message.

Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty