DUP accused of breaking promise

A row between rival unionists over next month’s crucial Northern Ireland peace process talks escalated after the DUP was accused today of breaking its promise to stop concessions to republicans.

In a hard hitting attack on the Democratic Unionists, senior Ulster Unionist Michael McGimpsey said it was clear concessions were continuing despite the Reverend Ian Paisley’s party being given a clean slate.

However DUP Assembly member Arlene Foster hit back, insisting the party had not been given a clean slate and was still trying to establish what had been agreed by the UUP, Sinn Féin and the British and Irish Governments when a deal spectacularly collapsed last October.

Mr McGimpsey, the UUP Assembly member for South Belfast, observed: “The DUP are fond of chest beating and posturing. An example of this was their promise that all concessions would stop.

“With the closure of Clogher base, Aughnacloy barracks and demilitarisation seemingly accelerating, people are quite entitled to ask them to honour their promise.

“The DUP, in trying to cover their tracks, makes up excuses by blaming the UUP but this a nonsense. The DUP started with a clean slate. They promised a new agreement, a fair deal, a deal which a majority of unionists and nationalists would support.

“But most importantly they stated that all concessions had stopped on November 26 last year. Almost immediately they began breaking this promise just as they have with all of their other promises.”

Mr McGimpsey alleged the DUP was engaged in choreography with Sinn Féin over a deal.

But Mrs Foster, who defected to the DUP this year from the Ulster Unionists along with colleagues Jeffrey Donaldson and Norah Beare, rejected his claims.

“Michael McGimpsey knows very well we did not start with a clean slate,” the Fermanagh and South Tyrone MLA responded.

“If so, why are we asking the Ulster Unionist Party to release the details of what was agreed with Sinn Féin and the two governments last October?

“Why haven’t they been quick to release those details once the DUP has challenged them?

“I and my colleague Maurice Morrow met with the Security Minister Ian Pearson in June when we became aware of the rumours circulating about Clogher and he made it very clear it had already been decided Clogher would close. So it’s wrong for the UUP to try and dupe the electorate.

“If you take another issue like on-the-runs (terror suspects who want to return from exile to Northern Ireland without being jailed), when I challenged David Trimble about the joint declaration, he said that had been agreed at Weston Park in 2001.

“How many people know that?

“If people like Michael McGimpsey really want a fair deal, they should stop all this spinning and come clean on exactly what was agreed last October.”

Two bids in April and October last year by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to revive devolution failed over Ulster Unionist concerns over the IRA.

Since then, the DUP has overtaken the Ulster Unionists as Northern Ireland’s largest party and biggest unionist party in Assembly and European Parliament elections.

DUP negotiators insist there must be a conclusive move by the IRA on disarmament and a winding down of all criminal and paramilitary activity by the Provisionals if they are going to share power with Sinn Féin.

Mr Ahern and Mr Blair will spearhead a fresh effort to secure a deal during talks at Maidstone next month involving the Assembly parties.