Alliance leader Naomi Long has defended her party's response to a drink-driving controversy involving two of their MLAs.
She rejected suggestions of a lack of transparency after Alliance refused to answer questions about its handling of the incident when new details came to light.
It recently emerged that Patricia O'Lynn was the previously unnamed pillion passenger on Patrick Brown's motorbike when he was caught drink-driving six years ago.
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The incident happened outside Belfast after 4am in the days following the March 2017 Stormont election in which both were Alliance candidates.
Mr Brown, who was a councillor at the time, was fined and received a driving ban. He apologised and was also suspended by a standards watchdog for six months from Newry, Mourne and Down council.
In a brief statement to Belfast Live last month, the party said "no offence was committed" by Ms O'Lynn and it had "no further comment to make".
It declined to say whether Ms O'Lynn, who recently stood down as North Antrim MLA, had been sanctioned in any way by the party at the time.
The party also declined to say why it was considered appropriate for Ms O'Lynn to later be appointed as special adviser to the Justice Minister in 2021 when Mrs Long held the post.
A family bereaved by drink-driving said the Alliance Party's response was "utterly disappointing".
Mrs Long was asked about the issue on BBC's The View programme on Thursday night.
The Alliance leader revealed South Down MLA Mr Brown was "suspended from the party for a period of time" over his drink-driving conviction.
When the offence first emerged, the party had declined to confirm what "disciplinary sanctions" he faced, saying it was an "internal matter and confidential".
Mrs Long insisted her party has a zero-tolerance approach to drink-driving.
However, she defended Ms O'Lynn being a pillion passenger on Mr Brown's motorbike when he was caught drink-driving.
"As it happens, Patricia committed no offence, and I have to say, I do think it's somewhat out of order for us to be sitting here talking about somebody who is no longer an elected representative, who has moved on and is now in a different line of employment," the Alliance leader said.
Mrs Long said her party was "not going to repeatedly comment on an issue that we dealt with at the time".
She added that "some of the reporting around this has been incredibly difficult, both for families and for those who were involved".
The East Belfast MLA said: "Ultimately, we have to accept that people can make mistakes, but they can also learn from those mistakes."
Ms O'Lynn became North Antrim's first female MLA and first Alliance MLA when she was elected last year.
Lisburn and Castlereagh councillor Sian Mulholland recently replaced Ms O'Lynn as an MLA after she stepped down to take up a new role at Queen's University Belfast.
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