North’s finance minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir asked to step aside

A Stormont committee has called on the North’s finance minister to stand aside pending the outcome of a probe into a party colleague’s back-channel contact with an inquiry witness.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

Máirtín Ó Muilleoir has so far resisted pressure to temporarily step down in the wake of the controversy that forced the resignation of Daithí McKay, a former Sinn Féin chairman of the Assembly’s finance committee.

That committee broke from summer recess to hold an emergency session yesterday to discuss the furore around Mr McKay’s handling of its inquiry into allegations of impropriety around the North’s largest ever property deal.