How pandemic forced Stormont MLAs to ditch habit that was costing you a mint

It took a global pandemic for MLAs to ditch a sweet-toothed habit that was costing you a mint.

For years Stormont provided mints in the assembly chamber for politicians to chew through, paid for by the public purse.

But the sweet treats have not been provided since mid-March with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Assembly said the long-running practice was stopped "in order to help minimise the risk of spreading the infection".

In the first few months of 2020 as devolution returned after a three-year hiatus, MLAs munched through 96 rolls of mints at a cost of £52.80.

The largest figure of the past decade was in 2014 when £392.70 was spent on 714 rolls of mints.

That works out at an average of more than six rolls per MLA.

In 2015 assembly members had 647 rolls at £355.85, while in 2016 there were 459 used up at a cost of £252.45.

The details were uncovered by Belfast Live through a Freedom of Information request.

TUV leader Jim Allister, who has long criticised the spending, had warned of the coronavirus infection risk from MLAs sharing open trays of the free mints.

He said MLAs in early March were "slow to worry about the risk of viral transmission via their infamous taxpayer-funded mints".

The North Antrim MLA added: "There have been many practices which have come to an end as a result of the pandemic which we all look forward to resuming once normality returns, but I don’t think there will be many outside the Stormont chamber who will be pushing for this practice to resume.

"One might have thought that once attention was drawn to the issue - as I did back in 2013 - shame would have ensured that the publicly-funded mints would stop but it took a global pandemic for us to reach that point."