Sinn Féin cannot be considered fit for government while links with criminality continue to exist, a DUP assembly member has warned.
Jim Wells was speaking after a former Sinn Féin election worker pleaded guilty to the attempted blackmail of a Co Down businessman.
Richard 'Dickie' O'Donnell (56), from Old Course Road in Downpatrick, is awaiting sentence for acting as a go-between after three men tried to extort £300,000.
When he was charged in October 2004 it emerged that O'Donnell had worked as an election agent for Downpatrick Sinn Féin councillor Eamonn Mac Con Midhe.
Sinn Féin has since said that O'Donnell was "not in Sinn Féin at the time of his arrest".
South Down assembly member Jim Wells said he believed this was just one of a number of similar cases which will come to light over the next few months and years.
"Instances like that, that suddenly come out like rabbits out of a hat clearly show that, beneath the surface, Sinn Féin are still up to their necks in criminality," he said.
Mr Wells said such revelations would have put the political process back to square one if a new power-sharing executive had been in place.
"If the DUP had agreed to go into some type of power-sharing with Sinn Féin it would have been completely undermined in the eyes of the public," he said.
"It would have come under a lot of pressure, if not collapsed."
He claimed republicans still had some distance to go before they would be trusted with political power.
"There has to be a situation where Sinn Féin are completely devoid of all links with criminality before they are fit for government," Mr Wells said.
