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The disgraced politician wife of Northern Ireland's First Minister Peter Robinson has been dumped by her party, sources said Saturday, as her husband faced calls to resign.
Her husband's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has terminated the membership of Iris Robinson, 60, over her financial dealings with a teenage lover.
She will vacate her seats in the British parliament and in the Northern Ireland Assembly next week, DUP officials told the BBC and the Press Association news agency.
A party source said: "The next few days is absolutely critical for the party. We wanted to show people we were acting decisively.
"There was no question about it, she had to go and go now. There was absolutely no sympathy for the position she found herself in."
Iris Robinson had already announced she was quitting politics because of severe depression.
She and her husband have become embroiled in a crisis after it emerged that she had secured 50,000 pounds (56,000 euros, 80,000 dollars) from two wealthy developers to help her then 19-year-old lover set up a restaurant in Belfast.
Peter Robinson has insisted he knew nothing of his wife's financial dealings and has vowed to clear his name, but he is facing growing calls to resign or consider his future amid deep disquiet within the DUP.
It is alleged he failed to alert the authorities that his wife did not declare her monetary interest in her lover's business, even though she was a member of the council which gave him the go-ahead to open in 2008.
The Free Presbyterian church, which is closely linked to the Protestant DUP, offered Peter Robinson little comfort when a senior minister urged him to step down as first minister.
"I do believe that his position is becoming increasingly untenable," said Reverend David McIlveen.
"Judgments that we make in private will undoubtedly influence our judgements in public," McIlveen said.
The scandal comes as tensions run high between the pro-British DUP and its partners in the power-sharing government in Belfast, Sinn Fein, who want a united Ireland.
Protestant conservative Unionists the DUP and Catholic socialist Republicans Sinn Fein have shared power since 2007, but concern over a return to violence was fuelled by the death of two British soldiers and a policeman in attacks by dissident republicans last year.
Fresh fears of violence were raised on Friday when a Catholic police officer was seriously injured after a bomb exploded under his car as he was driving to work. He remains in a critical condition.
