Four Stormont ministers are to be referred to the standards watchdog over potential breaches of purdah guidance during the Westminster election campaign.
The SDLP is making the referral, claiming ministerial announcements made in the run-up to the July 4 polling day weren’t in the spirit of the pre-election period designed to prevent those in office using their position for electoral gain.
Weeks before the series of announcements, First Minister Michelle O’Neill said it was going to be “very difficult” to publish Stormont’s draft programme for government due to purdah.
The Northern Ireland Executive published guidelines on the conduct of civil servants and special advisers during the election campaign but the Executive Office confirmed at the time to that it did not apply to ministers.
The announcements made during the campaign included Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald distributing £300m from the June monitoring round to various departments, while Conor Murphy unveiled fresh funding for an extra 500 student places and 16 PhD places at Ulster University’s Magee campus.
Ms O’Neill and Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly agreed to the June monitoring round and appeared at a related press conference.
Yet purdah prevented the publication of critical reports from the Audit Office and the assembly’s Standards and Privileges Committee, which were subsequently released in the midst of intensive election coverage.
Opposition leader Matthew O’Toole said he believed the series of pre-poll announcements “breached the long-established prohibition on political decisions during an election period”.
“The purdah rules prevented the publication of damning reports into the conduct of executive ministers and MLAs during this period but the same standards were clearly not followed by ministers,” he said.
“The Department of Finance prevented the release of a technical summary of consultation responses because of pre-election rules but at the behest of ministers pushed out what was reported as a ‘mini-budget’ just days from an election – it was shabby and shouldn’t have happened.”
The SDLP MLA said the relevant ministers were being referred to the Standards Commissioner to assess whether their actions amount to a breach of the ministerial code of conduct.
The Irish News asked the relevant departments for comment but there was no response.
