DUP gathers for 30th anniversary conference

The scaling down of military installations in Northern Ireland is making its population more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, hardline unionists are expected to hear this weekend.

Members of the Rev Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionists gathering for the party’s one-day 30th anniversary conference are to debate a motion on security from their youth wing, attacking the Army’s dismantling of watchtowers and installations in south Armagh and Co Derry as a "capitulation to terror".

Other motions at the conference in Newcastle, Co Down, condemn the granting of an amnesty to paramilitaries who were on the run at the time the Good Friday Agreement, call for the destruction of all terrorist weapons and the removal of Sinn Fein from government.

The Ulster Unionists are accused of emasculating the Royal Ulster Constabulary in police reforms which resulted in it being renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

The Ballymoney branch of the DUP will also call on delegates to demand the retention of the RUC Reserve as ‘‘a necessary arm of policing in Northern Ireland’’.

The conference will also hear a call from the Lower Ards branch for a tie-up scheme for the province’s fishing fleet and assistance for fishermen along with a proposal from the Moyle branch that a farm retirement/young entrants scheme for agricultural communities be introduced and condemnation of the Burns Report on post-primary education from MLAs.

The DUP’s Lisburn branch will also urge the British government to be more proactive in supporting the beleaguered aircraft industry in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks on the US.