Overview
- People Before Profit’s motion now has support from Sinn Féin, the SDLP and the Alliance Party, while the UUP will not back it and the DUP says Givan is staying in post.
- An Assembly debate and vote are scheduled for Monday, 10 November, with the arithmetic unlikely to unseat the minister under current power-sharing rules.
- Givan told MLAs the trip was funded by the Israeli government, said no public money was used, described the departmental post as strictly non-political and under an hour’s work, and cited a Permanent Secretary review giving a clean bill of health.
- Opposition parties and unions raised potential breaches of the Functioning of Government Act over using departmental channels and questioned whether visiting an occupied East Jerusalem school conflicted with UK foreign policy.
- Public pressure intensified with protests at Stormont and Belfast City Hall, an online petition surpassing 13,000 signatures, and Belfast City Council passing a no-confidence vote and urging removal of the department’s post.