Coronavirus: Sinn Féin offices received business grant

Three Sinn Féin offices received payments from Stormont's emergency Covid fund for small businesses.

This was despite MP and MLA constituency offices being ineligible for the scheme.

Payments were sent out automatically to 7,000 bank accounts, including to bank accounts of entities now deemed ineligible, such as wind turbines.

In response, the party told The Nolan Show the funding was "unsolicited" and had since been repaid.

"Three Sinn Féin offices received automatic and unsolicited payments of £10,000 under the Small Business Grant Scheme," a spokesperson said.

"Sinn Féin offices did not qualify and did not apply for the scheme and the monies have been returned to the LPS [Land and Property Services]."

Political party offices were not eligible to receive the cash, which was aimed at supporting small business at the beginning of the first lockdown in March.

The SDLP, Ulster Unionist Party and Alliance have all said that none of their MLAs or MPs received the grant.

An SDLP spokesperson said "The guidance issued states that MP and MLA constituency offices are not eligible for the £10k business relief grant.

"No SDLP MP or MLA has applied for, sought or received a payment for their constituency office."

The DUP has not responded to a question submitted by the Nolan Show on Monday.

One Sinn Féin MLA said he had received the payment, but could not say when it was paid back.

Sinn Féin MLA Maolíosa McHugh's office received the grant, which would have been automatically lodged in a Sinn Féin bank account in March.

He said he had contacted party officials to make arrangements to pay the money back "quite a while ago".

He told the Nolan Show "there was a thing came out yesterday to confirm it was done".

When asked specifically if the money had been paid back "quite a while ago", Mr McHugh said: "No, I am not saying that."

Mr McHugh said the party had "great difficulty contacting Land and Property Services at the time and getting it paid back to them".

He said the grant had now been paid back, but could not rule out that it was paid back as late as Monday when erroneous payments were revealed by the Nolan Show.

Mr McHugh sits on the Assembly's Finance Committee, where Ian Snowdon, Chief Executive of LPS, appeared last Wednesday.

Sinn Féin was asked that if Mr McHugh was aware of a problem in the system with returning unnecessary payments, why the MLA didn't raise his experience so that the issue could be rectified.

Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister said he has asked the assembly's standards commissioner to investigate whether Mr McHugh has breached the code of conduct for MLAs.

The Nolan Show also contacted Senator Elisha McCallion about whether her office in Londonderry had received the grant.

No response was given on the telephone call, and there was no reply to a question sent by text.

This comes after the Department for Economy revealed that 52 owners of wind turbines and one owner of an anaerobic digester had received the payment.

The department has yet to reveal how many political party offices, vacant properties or other recipients since deemed ineligible had received the payments.