O’Neill is not ‘First Minister for all’ – Gavin Robinson

DUP leader Gavin Robinson has said he does not believe that Michelle O’Neill is a “First Minister for all”.

Mr Robinson called on the Sinn Fein vice president to “show leadership” after a row over a jobs fair in Derry.

The Army had been due to attend the event but withdrew after some Sinn Fein, SDLP and independent councillors objected.

Ms O’Neill hit back at Mr Robinson’s comments, saying that Derry City and Strabane District Council should be respected, and the right decision had been made.

Mr Robinson said it was “a failure of leadership” in nationalism and republicanism.

However Ms O’Neill told the BBC that it had been “inappropriate” for the Army to be invited.

Meanwhile Foyle MP Colum Eastwood pointed out that the trial of Soldier F over the murder of two men in Derry in 1972 is due to start next week.

He said in that context it was “completely right, setting aside the clear security concerns and the risk that the event would be disrupted, that councillors raise their very serious objections”.

He also accused the DUP of “desperately trying to make this a political row when there are grieving families in this city about to face some of the most arduous days of their struggle for justice”.

Earlier Mr Robinson told the BBC Nolan Show: “The First Minister for all needs to speak up and say her people got it wrong, those councillors got it wrong.

“They have created a hostile environment which is unwelcome in Northern Ireland.

“She attends events with the commander in chief of the British armed forces and she gets plaudits for doing it.

“But it is meaningless if her councillors are acting in this way in Londonderry.”

Mr Robinson added: “Any time you hear a Sinn Fein representative say ‘we believe in a shared future, we believe in a shared society, our First Minister is a First Minister for all’.

“I think the lion’s share of people in Northern Ireland will sit back and say ‘no, you are not’.

The DUP leader said Ms O’Neill had to “understand it is more than her own back yard which lives in Northern Ireland”.

He added: “I don’t paint her as a First Minister for all, I don’t believe she is, I never have. My view on that won’t change.

“(Deputy First Minister) Emma Little-Pengelly is in that office very much for the reasons of balance and the system we have.

“I don’t buy in to the mantra that the First Minister is a First Minister for all, I believe she should be.

“I believe Emma Little-Pengelly displays leadership far beyond that of the co-habitant of Stormont Castle.”

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He said: “They need to demonstrate there are people in this community who don’t share their outlook and they have every right to share a different outlook, to believe in what they believe and pursue opportunities with the British Army.”

Sinn Fein Foyle MLA Ciara Ferguson said: “Derry and Strabane Council are democratically entitled to make decisions that relates to council property and to reflect, in doing so, the deep hurt that the British Army inflicted on the people of Derry.

“The DUP leader might want to believe that we have somehow reverted to the dark days of unionist domination but those days are gone and they are never coming back.

“Michelle O’Neill has consistently shown she is and will continue to be a First Minister for all.”

Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly are due to appear together before their Stormont scrutiny committee later this week.

MLAs returned to Parliament Buildings this week as the Assembly returned following its summer recess.