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LAST UPDATE | 8 Jun 2021
DUP LEADER EDWIN Poots has announced that Lagan Valley MLA Paul Givan is to replace Arlene Foster as Northern Ireland’s new first minister
Poots unveiled the new team during a series of announcements in the Great Hall at Stormont today.
The new ministers will take up their posts on Monday.
Revealing Givan as first minister designate, Poots paid tribute to Arlene Foster, thanking her for “excellent work”.
Givan said: “There is a huge responsibility that comes with this position, particularly in serving the people of Northern Ireland.”
Poots also named Gary Middleton as junior minister. Paul Frew has been named as Northern Ireland’s new economy minister, replacing Diane Dodds.
Michelle McIlveen will be the new education minister, replacing Peter Weir.
Weir tweeted: “There are some great appointments but disappointed to leave education, and in the balance of appointments it is sad there is little sign of healing or reaching out.”
Outgoing First Minister Arlene Foster previously indicated that she would stand down when Poots named a new ministerial team. However, Poots said Foster will remain as First Minister to lead a British-Irish Council meeting in her home constituency of Fermanagh on Friday.
Outgoing Stormont Economy Minister Diane Dodds has expressed disappointment in the new ministerial appointments announced by DUP leader Edwin Poots.
In a tweet, which has been retweeted by former DUP leader Arlene Foster and former leadership contender Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Dodds described the make-up of the appointments as “regrettable”.
“It is regrettable however that the new team announced today does not match the rhetoric about healing and bringing the party together,” Dodds tweeted.
Edwin Poots was later asked about the negative reaction of outgoing economy minister Diane Dodds.
“I accept that Diane probably isn’t in the best place today,” he said.
“I have been in that circumstance twice before where I’ve been a minister and I’ve been asked to step aside for others. And therefore that is a natural reaction.”
However, Poots said it was “inaccurate” to claim his team was only made up of his supporters.
“This team includes people who didn’t vote for me, who did vote for me and who didn’t declare their intentions,” he said.
Poots rejected allegations made by some resigning DUP members that there had been bullying and intimidation from members of his camp during the leadership contest.
When it was put to him that people may feel too scared to voice concerns about recent developments within the DUP, Poots said: “Let me just nail this thing about being too scared. This party is a party that will reach out to people and I, as a leader, am not someone who is either scary or bullying – I want to nail that absolutely and factually.”
If anybody wants to bring forward facts, they will be investigated, and they will be investigated fairly. I’m not standing for people coming forward with accusations without backing them with facts.”
Poots also reiterated his commitment to implement legislation for Irish language speakers at Stormont and all other outstanding aspects of the New Decade, New Approach (NDNA) deal that restored powersharing in 2020.
“We have committed to implementing all of NDNA, including the cultural aspects, and other parties have received that assurance,” he said.
Poots said he did not expect the re-nomination process required to appoint Paul Givan as First Minister to be problematic.
“I can’t see why it wouldn’t be straightforward,” he said.
“Because the issues that the public are talking about, in particular the health service, recovery from Covid-19, waiting times in our hospitals of 335,000 – there’s a job to be done. We’ve all got a job to do.
“We’ve got a mandate to do that job. I will respect Sinn Fein’s mandate and I expect them to respect my mandate.”
Edwin Poots has been a strong opponent of the Northern Ireland Protocol, insisting that it needs to be removed.
Speaking this afternoon, Taoiseach Michéal Martin said the “most effective way to guarantee implementation of the protocol and to resolve issues that people have with the protocol is within the existing agreement, within the joint committee, and in the engagement with Maroš Šefčovič and David Frost”.
“We made this point to the British government that this is the most effective and best way to resolve these issues,” Martin said.
The type of Brexit we have creates challenges all round in terms of trade between the EU and UK and clearly there are issues, I think, that can be reduced in terms of goods going into NI.”
As an example, he said, the protocol “facilitates seamless movement on milk north and south”.
“We need to stand back, depoliticise this, deal with it as a technical trading issue, and get the outstanding issues resolved.”
Poots began his reshuffle of Stormont posts by announcing new chairs and vice-chairs of a number of committees.
They include Christopher Stalford as principal deputy speaker and vice-chairman of the standards and privileges committee, Tom Buchanan as vice chairman of procedures, Keith Buchanan as vice chairman of the finance committee and Gordon Lyons as vice chairman of the health committee.
Poots also unveiled David Hilditch as vice chairman of the infrastructure committee and William Irwin as vice chair of the audit committee. Pam Cameron will become chairwoman of the assembly and executive review committee.
North Antrim MLA Mervyn Storey has been appointed as chairman of the justice committee and Jonathan Buckley will take up the role as chair of the infrastructure committee. DUP deputy leader Bradley has been appointed as chairwoman of the Communities Committee and William Humphreys is chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
The new appointments come as the DUP has been left reeling by a number of resignations.
South Down DUP constituency association chairman and councillor Glynn Hanna, his daughter Diane Forsythe, association member Richard McKee, and councillor Kathryn Owen all announced their resignations this week.
The latest to quit is Upper Bann association member Roberta McNally.
In her resignation statement posed on social media, McNally referred to scenes at a party executive meeting to ratify Poots as leader last month.
“Having been at the meeting myself, I also witnessed senior members telling people to put their hands down to enable the vote to be open,” she said.
“It was clear that those of us who did put our hands up were being noted. The arrogance of some senior members at the meeting was mind-blowing,” McNally said.
“I personally, until now, have enjoyed my time in the DUP and it was a great privilege to be elected onto the executive. I am extremely sorry to say that I informed the Upper Bann chairman of my resignation.”
With reporting by Lauren Boland
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France. Always have been. Always will be.
@Vonvonic: seriously?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: I would agree with Vonvonic. The alliance goes back to Norman-Ireland. A lot of the Normans that settled in Ireland would have classed themselves as more French than English.
@Vonvonic: I would agree you only have to look at the Wolfe Tone connection
@Patrick Corr: it was at Fontenoy that the cry was heard, while charging at the British in the decisive rout by the Irish Brigade, Remember Limerick and Saxon Perfidy.
@Vonvonic: Bien sûr mon ami!
It has to be said that Irelands department of foreign affairs have done a great job over the past few years with the UN Security Council, the observer statuses, etc., but the reality is Ireland has lost our biggest ally in the EU now that the UK has gone and there are a few countries who have their eyes on several of Irelands laws and policies that they will target and not for Irelands benefit. The commenters on this site are 90% anti UK, and definitely anti everything the government does, so it’s not the best comment section to get a decent POV but it would be good to see if Irish people, in general, are aware of where we stand in the EU today
@Local Ore: The article addresses this, we build alliances on a policy basis rather than being wedded to any particular one on all things. This is a highly beneficial approach that creates political capital. The divergence of Ireland and the UK within the EU has been going on so long that when it they did leave, it impacted us far less than many expected. We are well able to plough our own furrow and protect our own interests, while keeping a pragmatic and flexible position in a fast changing world. We are also now the only EU member State with english as a first language. If we weren’t doing so well already, I’d go so far as to say that the UK’s act of self-isolation will be the making of Ireland.
@Eoin Roche: Ireland’s economic success is completely due to FDI. It was 288% of GDP in 2019. The UK accounts for far more of FDI than any EU country. In terms of exports, The US and The UK account for 41% of Irelands exports, France accounts for 4%… I mention this because France competes with Ireland far, far more than people think and they intend to target Irelands FDI, I have members of my team supporting French Public Sector bodies right now reviewing EU policies on how to target the €1Trn FDI Ireland gets. Think of the size of France, we import about €13bn from them, they import about €5bn from us. France and Germany plan to strengthen their ties and “leadership” (control) of the EU over the coming years, this isn’t to support “the making of Ireland”, it’s to grow themselves
@Eoin Roche: Dublin is now an outlier in an EU where reliance on foreign multinationals will no longer be ignored. These companies now account for 32 percent of all jobs in Ireland and 49 percent of employment taxes. 75 percent of recent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Ireland either comes from the U.S. (58 percent) or the U.K. (17 percent). By contrast, just 5 percent comes from Germany. Dublins Economic Model is the talking point of EU policymakers, as I mentioned, and we are already seeing it – harmonised corporation tax. Next will be FDI policy and they are already drawing it up to try to “harmonise” it toward other EU countries.
@Eoin Roche: Correction: Malta has English as a first language.
@Nick Caffrey: Correction: Maltese is the 1st language in Malta, English is 2nd and also an official language
@Local Ore: You are failing to differentiate between US FDI and UK FDI. The US is by far more important than the UK to us, no comparison. Why do you conflate two wildly different countries/economies?
@Leo Sharkey: I’m not conflating them in any way, I’m pointing out that Irelands largest investment, and trade, comes from outside the EU and was heavily protected by the UK supporting Ireland on policy and vice-versa. I’ve seen people on this site say France and Germany are major allies/supporters of Ireland and I wonder if it’s total lack of knowledge, deliberate ignorance or just the anti-UK sentiment of most of the commenters. Only in Ireland do people think Ireland is better off in the EU without the UK… it goes against all logic and facts. The EU is a body of consultation and common action between states, underpinned by legal and institutional arrangements. These arrangements are evolving in response to needs as they arise and France and Germany’s needs to do not align to Irelands.
France and Germany have supported us throughout the whole Brexit process and NI protocol . If they wavered in their support for us, the British would sense an opportunity and end up causing trouble in Northern Ireland.
We are more aligned with our Nordic blood brothers and france than any of the other countries in europe.
It is worth recalling that the old British policy of DIVIDE AND CONQUER failed when they attempted to disunite the EU approach to recent events.
It’s a right tough one, not Portugal or Spain because of the amount that go there on holiday, they know what we are like when let out. Not the French as they’ve always tried to help us but end up making a balls out of it and then think it’s our fault. Not Poland, they know what we’re like too from half of them being here at one stage. It wont be the Italians either as the blue shirts have given Mussolini’s black shirts a bad name! I’ll run out of characters soon so I’m sure others can fill in the blanks, who haven’t we pissed off?
@This time its personable!: Did you read the article? The Scandinavian and Benelux countries are our natural allies in Europe.
@JustMeHere: I did boy, I didn’t include them there I was pointing out the additional reasons why the others aren’t too for caring about us!
I would argue that Angela Merkel and Germany have been our quiet allies for 20 years, France, the Baltic, and Benelux states, but generally speaking we have good relationships with all our EU colleagues.
@Leo Sharkey: I literally work in this area of the public sector and can tell by this comment that you most definitely do not. France has been attacking Irelands tax and FDI for my entire career, the “Dublin Economy” drives them mad in Brussels. The Netherlands directly competes, and wins, in financial services with Ireland. Ireland has a deregulated, highly flexible global economy that lacks the comprehensive social protections of continental counterparts such as the Netherlands or Denmark, the model stands in stark contrast to the centralism unleashed from the Elysée. The countries you mention are highly focused on corporate and digital taxation, data protection and the further centralization of the eurozone – all massively damaging and contrasting to the Irish model.
Henry 8th’s break was the same mentality as Brexit. A difference is that Boris will not be confiscating assets of Europeans and calling it a reformation.
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