His Royal Avenue store, located opposite the British Army barracks, was destroyed in an explosion, and looted.

[2] He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1994 New Year Honours for services to local government.

[3] During this period Empey built up a political base in East Belfast, but in 1995 he sought to become the Ulster Unionists' candidate for the North Down by-election.

In June 2001 Trimble temporarily resigned as First Minister of Northern Ireland and appointed Empey to fulfil the functions of the office for the interim period until disagreements between the parties had been resolved.

[7] In October 2011, he welcomed the news that the National Transitional Council of Libya had agreed compensate victims of IRA bombings.

In a reversal of fortunes, his main opponent was Alan McFarland, to whom he had lost the by-election nomination ten years earlier.

[15] Empey voted in favour of triggering Article 50 in 2017, to begin the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

[18] On 30 June 2001 David Trimble temporarily resigned as First Minister of Northern Ireland at midnight and appointed Empey to fulfil the functions of the office for the interim period until disagreements between the parties over decommissioning had been resolved.

Trimble had resigned in protest against the IRA failure to redeem its pledge to put its weapons "completely and verifiably beyond use".

[20] As alluded to above, Empey's premiership was marked by the continuing impasse arising from the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)'s refusal of Trimble's demands that it decommission its arms, as per the commitments all parties had signed up to in section 7 pt.

General John de Chastelain of Canada, chairman of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning, said the proposals had been accepted by the panel as ones that would "put IRA arms completely and verifiably beyond use."

Lady Empey was appointed MBE in the 2007 New Year Honours for services to the community in Northern Ireland and died in 2023.

[28] In the 2010 general election, Empey contested the South Antrim seat, but was defeated by the incumbent William McCrea for the DUP.