Stormont crisis deepened by Monday’s events in Assembly, says Gerry Adams

THE political crisis caused by the Democratic Unionist Party’s handling of the RHI renewable heating fund scandal was deepened by Monday’s events in the Stormont Assembly chamber, Gerry Adams said at the Dáil in Dublin on Tuesday.

“The issue isn’t going to go away,” he said, pointing out Sinn Féin has tabled a “substantive motion” for a full investigation to the Assembly when it returns from the Christmas recess “and we’ll be looking for support from the other parties”.

“We need to remind ourselves this isn’t an Orange and Green issue. It’s around serious allegations of incompetence or corruption but the fact is that £400million of taxpayers’ money has been wasted.

“We have to get to the facts of that,” he said, reiterating that Sinn Féin is seeking a “time-framed, robust, transparent investigation based, more or less, on the Commissions of Investigation that would be set up here at the Oireachtas”.

Gerry Adams rejected suggestions that asking DUP leader Arlene Foster to step aside as First Minister “at least until the preliminary report” was in any way alleging Arlene Foster is guilty of something ahead of an investigation or inquiry.

“Having been tried by the media on many, many occasions,” the Sinn Féin leader said to reporters, “we are very, very careful about the rights of everybody.”

The motion by the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party, he said, did prejudge the issue as they wanted to sanction Arlene Foster “without any of the facts being established”.

Sinn Féin, he said, wants to establish the facts.

The Sinn Féin leader also expressed his sympathies with those suffering from attacks Germany, Turkey and the protracted conflict in Syria.