Michelle O’Neill ‘proud’ of stance in staying away from Washington

Michelle O’Neill has said she is proud of the stance she took in staying away from Washington DC last week because of the situation in Palestine.

The Northern Ireland First Minister was criticised for boycotting St Patrick’s Day events in the US capital by Taoiseach Micheal Martin who described it as a “big mistake”.

Mr Martin said the decision was “not in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland”, pointing out that “huge efforts” were made at the beginning of the peace process to facilitate Sinn Fein.

Ms O’Neill, along with deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly led a trade delegation on a trip to North Carolina, but she returned home afterwards while Ms Little-Pengelly went on to Washington and met US President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, the Alliance Party and SDLP took the same stance as Sinn Fein.

Ms O’Neill was asked during questions for the Executive Office by UUP MLA Alan Chambers on Tuesday to assess the benefits of the trip to Washington.

“As the member is aware, I didn’t attend Washington last week because of the situation in Palestine, because of the stance of the US administration, and because I simply will not turn the other way when we see such a breach of international law and the genocide of the Palestinian people,” she told MLAs.

“Whenever everybody will reflect on this period in time, and there’ll be those that decided to look away, and those that didn’t. I will be proud to say I did not look away.”

Ms O’Neill also said she felt she could make that principled position, but work was also done to promote Northern Ireland.

“It showcases ourselves as a great place to live, to work, to invest, study, and we very much took that message when the deputy First Minister and I led a Chamber of Commerce delegation, when we went to mark the first anniversary of a memorandum with the North Carolina chamber,” she said.

She added: “As you know, the deputy First Minister then went on to Washington and carried out a whole programme of events, again, with those messages in terms of us being a great place for investment and a great place with great agility and a small community that actually can be very much world-leading in the fore of many, many areas.”

Mr Chambers pressed whether Ms O’Neill’s attendance in Washington as First Minister “would have added value to the visit”.

She responded: “I’m content with the decision that I made, as I’m sure the deputy First Minister is also content with her own decision.”