| Billsticker | Date: Tuesday, 2012-07-31, 8:37 PM | Message # 1 |
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| Kennedy defends ‘bias appeal’ decision
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news....4111213
Newry & Armagh MLA Conor Murphy
By SAM McBRIDE
Published on Tuesday 31 July 2012 08:49
UUP Regional Development Minister Danny Kennedy has defended his decision not to appeal a tribunal decision that former Sinn Fein minister Conor Murphy discriminated against a Protestant. Mr Murphy’s original decision to contest the case is expected to cost taxpayers several hundred thousand pounds. He said the tribunal decision had come after days of hearing evidence, was unanimous and that any appeal could cost taxpayers “unqualifiable” sums.
Both sides in the case – the department and the Equality Commission, who supported Dr Lennon – were publicly funded. The tribunal may now decide to award substantial damages to Dr Lennon because of Mr Murphy’s actions. As soon as the tribunal decision emerged last month, Sinn Fein called for an appeal and on Monday Sinn Fein minister Michelle O’Neill claimed that Attorney General John Larkin agreed that it “should be appealed”.
The Attorney General’s office declined to comment on Sinn Fein’s claim. You can follow News Letter political correspondent Sam McBride on Twitter. It is understood that the advice to which Minister O’Neill referred was given to Mr Kennedy and then circulated to every Executive minister.
Asked about that legal opinion, Mr Kennedy said that he could not make the Attorney General’s advice public. However, Mr Kennedy said that he had considered legal opinion which he believed to be “uncertain at best and certainly not compelling”. The Newry and Armagh MLA said that he had given “long and serious consideration” to the case and had refrained from commenting on it until now.
He pointed to the unanimous nature of the fair employment tribunal’s decision against Mr Murphy and that the case had been supported by the Equality Commission. Asked whether he was shocked by the case, Mr Kennedy said: “Well, I think I was and I said at the time in my initial response that I was deeply concerned about the finding of the fair employment tribunal. “It was a unanimous view, they had the opportunity to study the evidence; it is their decision, it is not my decision.
“I inherited this situation; I have not invented it – I think that’s very important – and so it’s not something that I as a unionist, if you like, have manufactured against a member of Sinn Fein. This case was taken on its merits, supported by the Equality Commission and it was a decision reached on that basis.”
When asked whether he had confidence in other appointments by Sinn Fein ministers, Mr Kennedy declined to comment, saying that his focus was on his department. Mr Kennedy insisted that the case had no implications for Sean Hogan, the man who benefited from Mr Murphy’s discriminatory decision. And he has also declined to launch a probe into Mr Murphy’s other appointments, something which some unionists wanted to see.
Last night in a statement Mr Murphy claimed that the decision not to appeal was “politically motivated”. Mr Murphy, who is no longer an MLA but remains an MP, claimed that it had been “clearly politically motivated and a way of scoring cheap political points at the expense of the truth”. However, the statement gave no indication that Sinn Fein will seek to judicially review Mr Kennedy’s decision.
One source suggested that it may be worse for the republican party if the decision had been appealed and lost for a second time. In the last three years only one appeal against a Fair Employment Tribunal has been successful. UUP MLA Ross Hussey said: “While the DUP stood idle, Sinn Fein has sought to bully the Ulster Unionist Party’s minister into lodging an appeal on behalf of Conor Murphy.
“Sinn Fein weren’t interested in the waste of taxpayers’ money or how speculative any appeal may be.” DUP MP Gregory Campbell said that the findings utterly undermined Sinn Fein mantra about “equality”. “The findings of the Fair Employment Tribunal relating to the appointment of the chair of Northern Ireland Water are a damning indictment of religious discrimination by a Sinn Fein minister,” he said.
“Whilst Sinn Fein often accuses others of discrimination, these findings point out that Mr Lennon was a victim of blatant discrimination.” TUV leader Jim Allister said: “Given the strength, both legal and factual, of the unanimous finding of the industrial tribunal of direct religious discrimination by Conor Murphy when DRD minister, the current minister, Danny Kennedy, is absolutely right to have withstood the political pressure and to have refused to pursue an appeal.
“Murphy was caught cold as an active discriminator. I, therefore, welcome the fact that minister Kennedy has done the right thing and denied Sinn Fein the comfort blanket of an appeal at the public expense.” There remains a second legal action against the department from Mr Murphy’s time as minister and his decisions about NI Water appointments.
Declan Gormley, who Mr Murphy sacked as NI Water director in controversial circumstances, is suing Mr Murphy personally and the department for misfeasance and defamation. Mr Gormley’s offer to withdraw the case if the department and Mr Murphy apologised to him and cleared his name was declined and the case is now expected to be heard in December. When asked about the case Mr Kennedy said that he was not prepared to discuss it.
However, when asked whether he could stand over the money being spent by his department defending the Gormley case, he said: “Without prejudice we have to say that each case stands or falls on its own merits and you have to give consideration on that basis.”
You can follow News Letter political correspondent Sam McBride on Twitter
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