What a Farce!
17 April 2012
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:
"Speaker Hay's handling of the very serious public vilification of Kieran McCarthy as 'a village idiot', by Health Minister Poots, was farcical.
"This is the same Speaker who gagged me for a week for poking fun at the Joint First Ministers, but who brushes a despicable outburst by a DUP minister under the carpet by suggesting a secret apology in the Speaker's room for something publicly declared in the Assembly chamber. Kieran McCarty was right not to facilitate such a fix. He was publicly wronged and the minister ought to have been made to publicly apologise. It's not hard to imagine what would have happened if I had addressed such a comment to any of the ministerial protected species."
"Speaker Hay's handling of the very serious public vilification of Kieran McCarthy as 'a village idiot', by Health Minister Poots, was farcical.
"This is the same Speaker who gagged me for a week for poking fun at the Joint First Ministers, but who brushes a despicable outburst by a DUP minister under the carpet by suggesting a secret apology in the Speaker's room for something publicly declared in the Assembly chamber. Kieran McCarty was right not to facilitate such a fix. He was publicly wronged and the minister ought to have been made to publicly apologise. It's not hard to imagine what would have happened if I had addressed such a comment to any of the ministerial protected species."
