A PROMINENT councillor who helped prompt an investigation into a controversial council land deal will find out on Wednesday if he will be suspended by a watchdog over allegations dating back over almost seven years.
Causeway Coast and Glens independent councillor Padraig McShane is set to go before officials from the Local Government Commissioner for Standards.
While it is not known what the outcome will be, he could face suspension just three months before May’s local elections.
In July 2017 Mr McShane was given a suspended sentence for assaulting a PSNI officer and other offences at an Orange Order parade in Ballycastle a year earlier after a confrontation with loyalist bandsmen.
In 2018 convictions for assaulting police and organising an un-notified protest were overturned.
However, a conviction for disorderly behaviour was upheld on appeal.
It is understood a complaint was made to the Commissioner for Standards by former DUP councillor John Finlay, who has since died, in the days after the Ballycastle incident.
Mr McShane stood down as a Causeway Coast and Glens councillor in May 2019 but was co-opted back into the local authority in October that year.
In recent years he has emerged as a critic of Causeway Coast and Glens council.
Last year an audit office report found that two land deals agreed by the council may not have been lawful.
Mr McShane and TUV leader Jim Allister had separately asked the audit office to examine the council's role in the deals.
The independent councillor also raised his concerns directly with the Department for Communities, which ordered the audit in November 2020.
If Mr McShane is suspended from council he will be absent from the chamber at a time when key issues linked to the audit report he is partly responsible for are due to be dealt with.
Mr McShane declined to comment when contacted.
