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Roy Beggs Jr

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Roy Beggs Jr
Member of Mid and East Antrim Borough Council
Assumed office
18 May 2023
Preceded byKeith Turner
ConstituencyLarne Lough
Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly
In office
11 January 2020 – 31 May 2022
Preceded byDanny Kennedy
Succeeded byJohn Blair (2024)
In office
12 May 2011 – 30 March 2016
Preceded byDavid McClarty
Succeeded byDanny Kennedy
Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly
for East Antrim
In office
25 June 1998 – 27 March 2022
Preceded byNew Creation
Succeeded byDanny Donnelly
Member of Carrickfergus Borough Council
In office
7 June 2001 – 5 May 2011
Preceded byJoseph Reid
Succeeded byJohn Stewart
ConstituencyKnockagh
Personal details
Born (1962-07-03) 3 July 1962 (age 62)
Glenoe, Northern Ireland
NationalityBritish
Political partyUlster Unionist Party
SpouseSandra Beggs
Children3
Residence(s)Glenoe, County Antrim
Alma materQueen's University of Belfast
ProfessionEngineer
WebsiteOfficial webpage

Roy Beggs Jr (born 3 July 1962) is an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) politician, serving as a Mid and East Antrim Councillor for the Larne Lough DEA since 2023. Beggs served as a Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 2011 to 2016, and 2020 to 2022. He was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly (MLA) for East Antrim from 1998 to 2022.

Political career

[edit]
Roy Beggs MLA - Carrickfergus constituency office

Beggs was first elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly for East Antrim at the 1998 election, where he topped the poll. [1]

At the 2001 local elections, he was elected to Carrickfergus Borough Council, representing the Knockagh District.

During this period, he had been elected as Chairman of the District Policing Partnership and vice-chairman of the Local Strategic Partnership and of the Community Safety Partnership.[2]

Beggs was re-elected to the Assembly at the 2003 election, with 16.7% of first-preference votes.

At the 2007 Assembly election, Beggs was elected on the 12th count with 10.2% of first-preference votes.

Beggs did not seek re-election as a councillor in the 2011 local elections, but did retain his Assembly seat in the Assembly election held the same day.

Following this, Beggs was elected as a Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He served as a member of the Assembly's Social Development Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Health Committee, Environment Committee, Finance Committee, Deputy Chairman of the Agriculture Committee and Regional Development Committee. He is the Ulster Unionist Party spokesperson on Social Development.

Beggs was the Ulster Unionist candidate for East Antrim at the 2015 UK General election, where he came second to the incumbent MP, Sammy Wilson, of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

He lost his seat to Danny Donnelly of the Alliance Party in the 2022 Assembly election.[3]

In the 2023 local elections, Beggs was elected onto Mid and East Antrim Borough Council as his party’s representative for the Larne Lough District.

Personal life

[edit]

Beggs is the son of the politician Roy Beggs, who was the UUP Member of Parliament (MP) for East Antrim from 1983 to 2005.[4]

In 2003, Beggs succeeded in having Irish rebel music removed from the in-flight entertainment of Aer Lingus airplanes. He complained of the "blatant promotion of militant, armed republicanism" on a music channel during a flight from Dublin to Boston after seeing that Derek Warfield had a radio channel dedicated to his music. Beggs, it was the same as "the speeches of Osama Bin Laden being played on a trans-Atlantic Arabian airline."[5]

Aer Lingus removed the material from their flights stating: "It is something that should not have been on board and we removed it immediately we became aware of it."[6]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Nicholas. "East Antrim". Ark.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 3 March 2017.
  2. ^ Information Office, Northern Ireland Assembly (26 November 2003). "Northern Ireland Assembly - Biography - Roy Beggs". archive.niassembly.gov.uk. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
  3. ^ "NI election results 2022: Sinn Féin tops first preference vote in NI election". BBC. 6 May 2022. Archived from the original on 6 May 2022.
  4. ^ Cullen, Paul. "Son of Beggs may find it hard to match father's share of UUP vote". The Irish Times. Retrieved 2 April 2022.
  5. ^ "Archived copy". www.roy-beggs.co.uk. Archived from the original on 13 April 2003. Retrieved 17 January 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. ^ "Not Found | BreakingNews.ie". www.breakingnews.ie. Archived from the original on 16 May 2011. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
[edit]
Northern Ireland Assembly
New assembly MLA for East Antrim
1998–2022
Succeeded by
Preceded by Deputy Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly
2011–2016
With: John Dallat
Succeeded by