During a hearing held on Friday, 24 April, Ards and North Down DUP councillor Colin Kennedy was suspended for three months after his public claims linking the LGBTQ+ community with support for Hamas.

The claim, which he shared in a long speech in October 2023, was made during a debate around the Israel-Hamas conflict. This meeting was held over a DUP motion condemning attacks by Hamas on Israel, which called on the council to support and “stand with Israel.”

Kennedy said during the meeting that: “Do not be surprised when those who enthusiastically endorse the LGBTQIA alphabet soup agenda in the West are the very same people who are now seeking to defend Hamas.”

The DUP councillor was met with backlash from the LGBTQ+ community.

Several of his colleagues, like the independently standing councillor Ray McKimm, who is gay, left the meeting in protest, further adding to the anger over the councillor’s words.

Hannah Irwin, the council’s deputy mayor, urged Mr Kennedy to retract his comments.

An alliance party member also exclaimed, “As a member of the LGBT community, I feel personally offended by it.”

A PSNI investigation found that the remarks did not amount to hate speech; however, complaints have been made to the local government since then, as the Local Government Commissioner for Standards has shared. The commissioner found Kennedy’s remarks breached the councillors’ code of conduct.

Ombudsman Margaret Kelly spoke out about the issue, saying the remarks “conflated the LGBTQIA+ community with support for the aims of Hamas”. She went on to explain that what he had said violated appropriate political speech, as it offended and affected a community protected under Northern Ireland law.

While taking into account the various circumstances that led to the situation, Kelly determined the best course of action was to suspend the councillor for three months, starting from April 24.