Officials took 10 actions around Paul Givan’s trip to Israel, committee told

Department of Education officials took some actions ahead of Stormont Minister Paul Givan’s trip to Israel last month, a senior civil servant has said.

The Education Department’s permanent secretary said he reviewed material publicising the trip, even though Mr Givan was not there in an official capacity, because Mr Givan had asked him to and the threshold for refusing a minister’s request is “high”.

He said that while department officials did not plan the trip, private office staff took around 10 actions in relation to it, “largely short email responses”, including emails forwarded on from the embassy to Mr Givan.

“There were some emails sent to the minister’s office that were passed on to the minister, those are the sorts of actions that I’m that I’m talking about,” Ronnie Armour told Stormont’s Committee for Education on Wednesday.

“There was a small number of activities that were involving the logistics and for the management of the minister’s diary. That was what I found.”

He said no departmental officials were on the trip and they were not present at any engagements remotely.

He also said an official invitation to a conference in Israel around February next year had been received in recent days.

“There is an invitation, an invitation has been received by the department for the minister to visit a conference, or to attend a conference, in the New Year that has been recorded in the normal way. That will go out to officials for advice.”

Mr Givan, a DUP MLA, has faced criticism and calls to resign since he took part in the fact-finding trip last month with a delegation from Northern Ireland at the invitation of the Israeli government.

This has prompted protests, and a no-confidence motion on Monday – which he survived and slammed as “ideological purging”.

Mr Givan has also faced questions over whether departmental resources should have been used to publicise the visit.

He told the Assembly last week that the permanent secretary and senior officials reviewed his engagements on the visit and gave a “clean bill of health” to him as minister and all civil servants that their actions were appropriate.

“My permanent secretary reviewed the press release published by the department pertaining to the school visit and he concluded that it had no political content, was directly related to my portfolio and therefore approved my request.”

Appearing before the committee on Wednesday, Mr Armour said that while the trip to Israel was not an official departmental trip, “all required internal clearances were obtained” for material to publicise the trip.

The trip was suggested, planned and organised by the Israeli embassy in London, he said, which included paying the insurance and developing the itinerary.

He said the department did not fund “any aspect” of the visit, no briefing materials were sought or supplied prior to the visit and it was “not framed as an educational visit”.

“The minister indicated that while he had expressed an interest in an educational element to the trip to learn about the education system in Israel, his visit to the school was only finalised when he was in Israel and included the wider delegation.”

He said: “The involvement of departmental staff prior to the visit was limited to a small number of administrative tasks, such as providing a letter of acceptance and confirming travel logistics.

“These were undertaken within our private office. These actions were considered necessary to manage the trip within the minister’s overall official diary and to co-ordinate the cancellation of other official engagements.

“Private office staff also obtained IT security clearance to allow the minister to take his mobile devices and therefore work during his trip.”

Mr Armour later said that diary “adjustments” would be a better term than “cancellation”.

On return from the trip, Mr Armour said Mr Givan asked the departmental press office to prepare a press statement, and he was notified of this.

The release was then sent to him for clearance, while he was out of the country and on holiday, and he approved it after concluding that it did “not contain political content” but only “factual information”.

He also said the threshold for refusing a ministerial request is “high” and the press release provided “transparency” to his visit.

He estimated that department staff spent between two to three hours on the 10 actions, the press release and the social media post.

Asked by committee chairman Nick Mathison, of the Alliance Party, why the department was involved in approving publicity if Mr Givan was not there in an official capacity, Mr Armour said he was asked by the minister.

“I looked at the press release very carefully. It was a factual account.

“I did not feel, within the constraints that I operate, that I was in a position to refuse the request of the minister for all of the reasons that I outlined in my opening remarks, and therefore I gave approval to that and take responsibility for giving approval to it.”

Asked by deputy chairman Pat Sheehan, a Sinn Fein MLA, about whether the location of the school in an illegally occupied territory, or whether international arrest warrants issued for senior Israeli government figures, would have given him the power to refuse the minister’s request, he said that he did not look at where the school was located.

He said if he had been aware, it “would have been a factor to take into account”.

“Perhaps I should have, but I didn’t ask the specific location in the school,” he said.

“I was aware that the minister was in Israel. I was aware it was in Jerusalem. I didn’t know the specific location of the school.

“In terms of the second part of your question, I didn’t reflect on the politics of international arrest warrants.”

He added: “I haven’t been relaxed about any of this … I can assure you I haven’t dealt with this in a casual manner.”