News

MLAs may not view Robinsons report until September

LONG-AWAITED report into the conduct of Peter and Iris Robinson may not be considered by MLAs until the assembly returns in September.

Although the report has been passed to the assembly's Standards and Privileges Committee, given that the assembly goes into summer recess today the committee may not be able to scrutinise it until September.

The investigation was ordered in January 2010 following revelations Mrs Robinson

had borrowed £50,000 from two property developers to help her then lover, 19-year-old Kirk McCambley, to open a cafe.

The probe had looked at whether Mr or Mrs Robinson had breached the assembly's code.

The inquiry was initially delayed for more than a year after the police launched their own investigation.

However, after the Public Prosecution Service said no criminal charges would be brought, the assembly's investigation resumed.

An initial draft of the report was completed in November 2013. Following months of legal discussions with Mrs Robinson's solicitor John McBurney, a revised version of the report has been submitted to the assembly's Committee on Standards and Privileges.

Mr McBurney said last night he had been unhappy with parts of the initial draft that referred to "private matters" that were "not strictly relevant".

"This has been revised on several occasions," he said. "We still reserve the right to make further representations to the committee."

Douglas Bain, the Assembly

Commissioner for Standards, confirmed last night the report had been passed to the committee after some unspecified revisions were made.

Mr Bain said "an agreement has been reached under which a number of small revisions have been made to a small number of documents attached to my report".

Alliance MLA Anna Lo said she would call for a special meeting to allow committee members to consider the report within the next few weeks.

Ms Lo said she wanted the report to be published as soon as possible.