Michelle O’Neill urged to correct record over teenager’s age

Michelle O’Neill is facing calls to correct the record at Stormont regarding the age of the teenage boy who received inappropriate texts from the former senator Niall Ó Donnghaile.

On Monday, the first minister and Sinn Féin vice president told the assembly that party membership files said the boy was 17 at the time.

But the party has since said the young person was 16 years old.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald is expected to correct the record officially in the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament) on Tuesday.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has called for O’Neill to return to the assembly and make a similar correction there.

Mr Ó Donnghaile, a former Belfast lord mayor, was suspended by Sinn Féin over the issue but the party allowed him to resign on health grounds in 2023 without revealing the complaint against him.

McDonald confirmed on Monday that she will respond “fulsomely” to the boy’s account of the matter and would correct the Dáil record to confirm the right age.

“It is very important that the record of the Dáil is accurate, so of course it will be corrected,” McDonald said.

McDonald is also expected to issue a full apology to the teenager.

“He will be given a full unequivocal apology. For me he is a young person who deserved to be fully comfortable within Sinn Féin. What happened to him was wrong,” she said.

“Niall Ó Donnghaile’s behaviour was unacceptable and utterly inappropriate. No young person should have experienced that.”

O’Neill was questioned about the matter in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Monday.

She was asked by DUP assembly member Jonathan Buckley to clarify what age the boy was.

O’Neill replied: “According to our records the young person was in fact, 17. That’s the records we have in our files of membership.”

DUP assembly member Brian Kingston said the party will question O’Neill “at the scrutiny Committee for The Executive Office on Wednesday regarding all safeguarding and misconduct matters of public concern”.

On Monday evening, McDonald said Sinn Féin accepted the boy’s own account that he was 16 at the time.

“The person knows their age so obviously Michelle is right, the party records did indicate that he was 17, it was on his application form for membership,” McDonald said.

“But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that we respond fully to the young person in question and what matters is that the Dáil record is accurate and I will attend to both of those matters tomorrow.”

A Sinn Féin spokesperson said the party record of the boy’s age was “based on the date of birth that [he] provided on his membership documents at the time”.

The spokesperson said it had “since emerged” that the boy was 16 years old.