Northern Ireland’s first minister, Peter Robinson, has said that no one from his family ever benefited from the sale of £1bn of Irish state-owned properties in the region.
The National Crime Agency has been called in to investigate claims by an Irish leftwing parliamentarian that £7m was secreted into an Isle of Man bank account for a Northern Ireland politician to help process the sale.
But on Friday night Robinson said he and his family had not gained “one penny” from the sale of the debt-ridden properties to an American investment fund.
He also hit out at “village idiots and trolls” who had made allegations over the sale against his son Gareth on social networks.
Robinson said there had been a “witch-hunt” against his son and his PR firm, Verbatim.
Referring to the selloff of assets that once belonged to property speculators and Irish banks but were taken over by the Irish government, Robinson said: “The only thing that any politician that I know in Northern Ireland got out of this was to see the builders’ cranes moving again, to see jobs in the construction industry, to see our economy getting some growth.”
He added: “There is nothing that I have seen that substantiates those allegations in relation to the DUP or any other party.
“There were about five ministers who would have been involved to some extent in these matters. The interests of every one of them was to get the best deal for Northern Ireland.”
