BELFAST, Northern Ireland — The peace process faces a new challenge as Northern Ireland’s leader was forced to step down — at least temporarily — amid outrage following revelations of his wife’s affair with a 19-year-old.
In an emotional statement Monday, First Minister Peter Robinson said he would step aside for a few weeks to answer questions about his wife’s romantic and financial dealings with the young man for whom she helped raised tens of thousands of pounds when she was 58.
Iris Robinson, also a lawmaker, said last week that she began the affair less than two years ago while she was suffering a bout of mental illness and comforting someone after a family death.
Giving few details, she said she had encouraged friends to give her lover financial support.
The British Broadcasting Corp. reported that Iris Robinson allegedly solicited $80,000 from people in business so her lover could open a restaurant.
The BBC suggests Peter Robinson acted improperly by failing to alert parliamentary authorities about the financial transactions.
The scandal has outraged Peter Robinson’s socially conservative Protestant power base and threatened to undermine the Democratic Unionist Party’s partnership with the Catholic Sinn Fein — critical to maintaining Northern Ireland’s shaky coalition government.
Looking pale and drawn Monday, Peter Robinson said his wife was now receiving psychiatric treatment and that he was stepping down to deal with family matters and to allow an inquiry to take place. He denied any wrongdoing.
Robinson’s Protestant colleague Arlene Foster, who replaces him, promised lawmakers that the 61-year-old politician would soon be back “with a clear record.”
But Britain and Ireland’s governments fear that the scandal weakens Robinson’s party in its negotiations with Sinn Fein over if and how responsibility for policing and justice should be transferred to the Assembly.
