The DUP MLA said:
“Whilst serious questions have been raised over the influence of Dublin crime gangs on Sinn Fein, significant concerns also remain about donations funnelled to Sinn Fein from abroad and how this money is being used to influence politics and elections here.
There is no other party where an allegation has been made that they used a criminal gang for “money and votes”. There is also no other party on either side of the border which is benefitting from someone in the United States boasting they were “paying the bills”. There is no other party running their social media from Serbia.
Foreign donations are outlawed across all other parts of the UK and in the Republic of Ireland yet Sinn Fein remain able to take advantage of this loophole which exists in Northern Ireland alone. In the last few days, we know that nearly £1million was raised in the United States alone.
Sinn Fein are not a normal political party, not least because they are the richest party on either side of the border. They also differ because there are serious questions both about how they raise this money and how it is spent.
The most recent of these in the Republic of Ireland is their failure to account for spending on their secretive voter database. Despite their breach of Data Protection rules within the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Fein were also never subject to any detailed audit or investigation of how their Northern Ireland database operates.
Serious and important questions remain over Sinn Fein’s millions.”