THE North of Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson has announced he intends to step down from the post in the next few weeks.
Mr Robinson, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – the biggest Stormont party – has been in the office since 2008.
The news may not come as a surprise – Mr Robinson suffered a heart attack in recent months and it was widely rumoured that the 66-year-old would retire.
But, speaking today, he said it was not because of his health and that he his retirement was something he had been planning it for some time.
With a political career spanning four decades, he is no stranger to controversy and so, in light of the news of his departure from the Northern Ireland Executive, we take a look at some of his more memorable moments – both good and bad.
Mr Robinson during the Clontibret scandal. Picture: newsletter.co.ukThe Invasion of Clontibret
In 1986, at the height of the Troubles in the North of Ireland, Mr Robinson led a group of loyalists into the Co. Monaghan village of Clontibret – just a mile from the border with the North.
The group daubed loyalist messages over the village's unmanned garda station and held a loyalist parade in the village. Mr Robinson escaped a prison sentence but was ordered to pay a £17,500 fine and temporarily stepped down from the DUP.
He claimed the invasion was to show that security was lax south of the border. "Because of the fine, he was known as Peter Punt back then," said Belfast-based journalist and political commentator Eamonn Mallie.
He helped make the DUP the largest party in Stormont
Throughout his career, Mr Robinson was known for his steely determination as a strategist. In 1979 he became the youngest MP in Britain - and was a founding member of the DUP, now the largest political party in the North of Ireland. His shrewd strategies saw the party rise to the top of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The Iris Robinson scandal
In one of the biggest political scandals in the North of Ireland, Mr Robinson’s wife Iris, 59 at the time and herself a politician, was revealed in 2010 to have had an affair with a 19-year-old friend of the family. She had also procured £50,000 in loans for her lover to help with his dream of owning a restaurant. The fallout saw Mrs Robinson quit politics, while Mr Robinson stepped down from the First Minister’s office for six weeks to deal with it.
He reached out to republicans
Mr Robinson's staunch unionism often saw him criticised by the Catholic republican community - but in 2011 he said that the DUP needed to reach out to the Catholic community to cement the North of Ireland's place in Britain. He began to make significant moves to build bridges, such as attending the funeral of Michaela Harte, daughter of Tyrone GAA manager Mickey Harte, in 2011. "He was struck by the closeness of the GAA community and wanted to bring that into his own community," Eamonn Mallie said.
Iris Robinson. Picture: Getty ImagesHis views on homosexuality
Mr Robinson’s views on homosexuality have landed him in hot water several times. A devout Christian, he has expressed his view that homosexuality is against Christian theology on a number of occasions and earlier this year defended a party colleague’s stance that homosexuality should be illegal.
The Peace Process
Working closely with then-DUP leader Ian Paisley, Mr Robinson was one of the key figures in the peace process. Former North of Ireland secretary Peter Hain commended Mr Robinson’s contribution to peace in the North.
“If Ian Paisley was the unionist pilot of the peace process then Peter Robinson was the unionist navigator, an indispensable part of the project that has established self-government and a permanent settlement between bitter old enemies,” he said.
