![\"Trial](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/7E2QYBCQABMETOQDSTOCPVBSHM.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Judge’s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AQ3KEP6XGNJCZEBLIDCQHNO6MA.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nExecutive Office committee chair Paula Bradshaw said Ms Little-Pengelly and First Minister Michelle O\u2019Neill had originally been scheduled to appear before the committee in June.<\/p>\n
![\"Paula](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/D6XP4QDTCZMWJDCPPBU45PIJRA.jpg\")
Paula Bradshaw questioned the deputy First Minister over her Wimbledon trip (Brian Lawless\/PA) <\/p>\n
She said this was postponed because Ms O\u2019Neill was unwell and then Ms Little-Pengelly had advised she could not appear in the first week of July because she was in London.<\/p>\n
Ms Bradshaw said: \u201cThen it transpired you were in London at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe weren\u2019t yet in recess. I am just wondering what judgment you exercised in terms of prioritising Wimbledon over coming here to hold yourself accountable to this committee?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had not had a briefing from you in terms of programme for government, we hadn\u2019t had you in front of us since last September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am wondering what judgment was exercised and how you feel that was a good use of public money to put your travel expenses on your trip to Wimbledon?\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Little-Pengelly responded: \u201cI was fully ready to go at the scheduled appointment time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were unable to do so because the First Minister wasn\u2019t well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The deputy First Minister said she had offered to appear at the committee alone, but was told the appearance would be rescheduled.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cI was not scheduled the next week to be in front of this committee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Little-Pengelly said she had told the committee she would be in London.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cThat was a fact, nobody misled anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Bradshaw said: \u201cUnder the circumstances, the fact you had not been here\u2026 should you not have thought this was a leisure trip?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it was just a leisure trip to London should you not have made yourself available to this committee to come with the rest of your ministers to engage with the MLAs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Little-Pengelly asked the committee chair to clarify previous reported remarks from her that the committee had been \u201cmisled\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Bradshaw said she had used \u201cchoice words\u201d.<\/p>\n
Ms Little-Pengelly said: \u201cI was scheduled to appear in front of this committee, I was available to appear in front of this committee and indeed when we were not able to because of the health of the First Minister, I offered to come along.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was not scheduled to come to the committee the following week. I was otherwise occupied.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had been officially invited to attend that event as deputy First Minister.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was communicated to you very factually I was in London and no further questions were asked by you or your team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Bradshaw said: \u201cWe weren\u2019t yet in summer recess.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Little-Pengelly said: \u201cI was not scheduled to be in front of this committee that week, I made myself available when I was scheduled and that was indicated to you.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have nothing further to add.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly has denied that she misled a Stormont committee over her attendance at Wimbledon…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[60836,17425,16659,1647,60837,101,118,56,8208,54,55,116],"class_list":["post-128920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-education-authority","tag-emma-little-pengelly","tag-michelle-oneill","tag-northern-ireland","tag-paula-bradshaw","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-ulster","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}