Sinn Féin have distanced themselves from a former MP’s comments, linking delays to the A5 road upgrade to the Plantation of Ulster.
Appearing on the BBC’s Stephen Nolan programme, the ex-Mid Ulster MP Francie Molly was questioned over why Stormont had failed to deliver major infrastructure projects such as Casement Park and the A5.
“It hasn’t delivered the A5 because courts have come in the way and people using the courts to obstruct a political process,” he said.
“In the A5 you have an obstruction from the landowners, the people who have got this land originally under strange circumstances in some cases, they’re the people who are now blocking any development.”
Asked to clarify what he meant, Mr Molloy said: “Remember this all goes back to the Plantation of Ulster if you want to go back into the history of it.”
Denying this was a sectarian statement, he said: “It’s not a sectarian statement at all. It’s a statement that actually was given to me by a DUP member at one stage.”
A Sinn Fein spokesperson told the Irish News: “Francie Molloy does not represent Sinn Féin.”
The plantation refers to the 17th century policy of moving English and Scottish settlers to the north of Ireland to make the area more sympathetic to King James I.
Wealthy landowners and companies footing the bill were then offered large areas of land taken from the local Irish population.
Responding to Mr Molloy’s comments, the TUV leader Jim Allister posted: “Who would have known? Sinn Féin’s big new excuse on the A5 is ‘the Ulster Plantation’. Molloy’s outburst this morning takes some beating. It’s just, of course, another sectarian incarnation of ‘Brits Out’.”
DUP MLA Paul Frew travelled even further back in time than Mr Molloy by referencing the historical High King of Ireland, Brian Boru.
“There it is. Knew it was something just couldn’t put my finger on it, not being able to deliver for NI after all these years.
“I do recall Brian Boru having exactly same problem delivering A5 back then because of Flaithbertach Ua Neill teaming up with Cenel Conaill. Leadership hey.”
The DUP’s West Tyrone MLA, Thomas Buchanan, also told Sinn Féin “to stop blaming 1609 for A5 failure”.
“Until two years ago, Francie Molloy was a Sinn Fein MP and constituency colleague of Michelle O’Neill. We should be told whether the First Minister agrees with these extraordinary comments,” he said.
“The A5 has not been delayed because of events in 1609. Reaching back more than 400 years to explain Sinn Féin’s inability to deliver a road in 2026 is the hallmark of a party that is increasingly divorced from reality and becoming ever more ridiculous in its attempts to blame others.”
He added that “unattainable net zero targets” supported by Sinn Fein had blocked the scheme as well as “serious failures” in the treatment of landowners.
Expected to cost £1.7bn, the proposed A5 upgrade would develop a 58-mile section between Derry and Aughnacloy in Co Tyrone.
Over 50 people have been killed on the road since 2006, with campaigners demanding progress while affected landowners have lodged multiple legal challenges.
In 2025, a High Court judge ruled in favour of a group of landowners who argued that the A5 scheme did comply with net-zero targets set out in the 2022 Climate Change Act.
The infrastructure minister Liz Kimmins is currently attempting to get the High Court verdict overturned.
