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By Liam Clarke
Belfast Telegraph
25 May 2012
The Alliance Party has walked away from a crucial Stormont committee on combating sectarianism and building a shared future together, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.
The five-party working group was set up after a plan produced by Sinn Fein and the DUP was rejected in a public consultation process which ended in September 2010.
The committee, which was set up last year to agree a Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) strategy, has met in secret, but has so far failed in its task to produce a way forward.
“We have now lost our faith in the integrity of this process,” Alliance leader David Ford said.
He accused the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), headed by Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, of “bad faith”, and called for the private meetings between the five parties to be replaced by open public debate.
“The current process has become an attempt at creating an illusion that the DUP and Sinn Fein are serious about agreeing a strategy that will actually promote a shared society,” he said.
His comments follow interviews with Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness in the Belfast Telegraph on May 12 to mark the current Executive’s first year in office.
Both men said that they had found it impossible to agree a CSI strategy in the committee.
They said that they intended publishing a compromise paper which “would find maximum acceptability within the community” some time next month.
Mr McGuinness blamed Alliance for the delay. “I do think the Alliance party’s attendance leaves a lot to be desired, although they are the ones who have been pushing this publicly,” he said.
Later Mr Robinson also blamed Alliance by name in Stormont.
Yesterday, Mr Ford responded by writing to Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness to warn that “the paper that is emerging from the process falls far short” of what is needed. He pledged that if they did publish a paper “Alliance will of course participate constructively in Executive and Assembly discussions on any such strategy”.
The CSI committee meets every Tuesday and its proceedings are not made public. According to Alliance records, their representative, Chris Lyttle, has attended all but one of the meetings when he was absent on paternity leave.
On that occasion, in January, he was replaced by Richard Good, Mr Ford’s special adviser.
Last week, DUP Junior Minister Jonathan Bell criticised Alliance’s record and accused Mr Lyttle of being absent for much of January.
Alliance has asked OFMDFM to provide attendance records, but has received no reply. They say they asked on May 14 and that, under the rules, a reply should have been made by May 17.
At Tuesday’s meeting Alliance brought things to a head by presenting a list of eight essential items which they believe should be on any document to promote a shared society. It includes a review of segregated housing, a framework for dealing with illegal flags and emblems and a test of all public spending to ensure it prioritises sharing over separation.
“The responses we received made clear that the other parties aren’t prepared to commit to the actions the Executive needs to take to build a genuinely shared future,” Mr Ford stated.
He wrote in his letter: “The current approach within the group, of seeking to agree a strategy that everyone can sign up to on the basis that it makes little change to the status quo, is not one that we will participate in any longer.”
An Alliance spokesman added: “We were mainly concerned about policy, but the comments by the deputy First Minister and subsequent comments by the First Minister and Jonathan Bell have made the situation more difficult.”
This shot across the bows is a wake-up call
If Alliance ever withdraws from the Executive, as it has threatened in the past, this will be seen as the moment the rot started and the party of accommodation showed its tough side.
The DUP and Sinn Fein needed Alliance to help them with the devolution of policing and justice because no other party could command cross-community support to take on such a contentious job.
Then Alliance built its vote and got a second ministry under d’Hondt, Education and Learning (DEL).
DEL is being abolished later this year, but that is unlikely to provoke a walkout. Threatening Cohesion Sharing and Integration, Alliance’s signature policy and its main raison d’etre as an organisation, and then blaming it for the problem undermines its self respect.
Pulling out of the CSI committee is a first shot across the bows of the bigger parties and the first time in years Alliance has used its elbows like this.
For all our sakes a comprehensive CSI strategy needs to be agreed. Division along sectarian lines is the poison which has brought our society into conflict in the past. It could do so again if it is not tackled in a systematic way.
Sectarianism makes all our other problems worse and communal division is that much harder to tackle because our political system is built on it.
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness both say their parties are reaching out to the other community. Indeed they have personally given a lead by attending sporting events, religious services and other functions. This helps but it is not a comprehensive strategy to tackle problems on the ground where rioting and violence are a danger. It is good to talk of a shared future and an integrated education system, like Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness, but it is not enough in itself. We need a road map which will bring us to these objectives in a reasonable time frame.
Each year’s delay is a year in which society can be torn apart by loyalist or dissident violence — and is a year in which our pitch for investment and tourism can be marred by a mishandled marching season.
Alliance’s withdrawal from the committee must provide a wake-up call, not provoke a crisis. It is up to our politicians to work this out and find a way forward.
They were elected to pull together productively and they must do so.
Breaking News.ie
21/04/2012
The Alliance Party leader has called on the North’s electorate who want a real shared future to start backing change.
David Ford said voters who want to transform society and build a united community should move on from their political allegiance and play a role in making it happen.
Addressing delegates at his party’s conference in Belfast, he said the party had ambitious targets for the coming years to have more councillors and Assembly members who will deliver change.
“So today I appeal to people who vote for, who are members of and even those who are elected as representatives of these other parties: do you want to go on forever, locked into the same old politics?” Mr Ford said.
“Or do you want to see a step change, a radical shift in the politics of this place?
“To those in the UUP and SDLP: are these parties really going to recover? Are they really going to deliver the kind of future that our community needs? If you think they are, carry on. But if your ambition is change, if you want to see a genuinely shared future, will you ever be able to achieve it in those parties?
“Do you want your politics to be defined by a never-ending battle for unionist votes or nationalist votes? Or do you want your politics to be defined by the kind of society that we need to build?”
Mr Ford claimed the UUP and SDLP were mirror images of each other, casting about for relevance as their support drains away, no longer able to convey a sense of purpose to the electorate because they can’t agree on what that purpose is.
“But if the SDLP and UUP are to be pitied, the DUP and Sinn Féin are to be feared,” said Mr Ford.
“There is plenty of fine rhetoric but behind the rhetoric they have settled into a cosy carve-up. Look at their record.”
Mr Ford said that while political leaders talk of a shared future, they must practice what they preach.
“When he’s not threatening to collapse the power-sharing objective over the badge on a cap that some prison officers wear, Peter Robinson is talking about a shared future,” said Mr Ford.
“When they’re not insisting that the sectarian designations of the Good Friday Agreement must be preserved for ever and a day, the SDLP are talking about a shared future.
“When he’s not wrapping himself in the Union Flag at the UUP AGM, Mike Nesbitt is talking about a shared future.
“And when they’re not cutting all the funding of the Department of Education’s cross-community youth programmes, Sinn Fein are talking about a shared future.
“But talk is cheap, just like a ticket for the odd sports event being played by the other side.
“Genuine leaders would turn up at Windsor Park before and not after God Save The Queen, or arrive in Armagh in time for Amhran na bhFiann before the Dr McKenna Cup match.
“Gestures may be a good start but gestures are empty if they don’t lead to actions with more substance.”
The Alliance Party was celebrating its success in last year’s elections, with a 50% increase in its number of councillors and seven MLAs elected.
But the leader criticised DUP and Sinn Fein proposals to remove the Department of Employment and Learning – a ministerial post held by Alliance member Stephen Farry.
“There are two possible explanations,” continued Mr Ford.
“Is it vandalism against an important economic Department at a time of economic difficulty, rather than the properly thought-out restructuring of departments that we need?
“Or is it malice against Alliance because the growing strength of our party is a threat to the big two, especially in East Belfast?
“Ministers lose their posts. That’s politics. But it looks to me as if Stephen is going to establish a record: the first minister anywhere in these islands who is threatened with the sack because both he and his party are successful.”
By Martina Purdy
BBC
27 Feb 2012
The Alliance Party is calling on the executive to ensure the 100th anniversaries of key historic events are marked in an inclusive way.
The party is leading an assembly debate on the issue and is also asking that the British and Irish governments get involved in coordinating centenaries such as the 1912 signing of the Ulster Covenant, and the 1916 Easter rising.
“This is a positive opportunity,” said Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle, “for us to celebrate events in an inclusive manner and in a way that can boost the cultural and economic development of our region.
“We want to see people come and visit Northern Ireland and commemorate and celebrate these events with us.”
This year commences a decade of centenaries ranging from the launch of the Titanic to the Easter Rising in 1916 to partition and the foundation of Northern Ireland.
The events also include the centenary of women winning the right to vote in 1918.
‘Significant opportunity’
The motion is expected to win the backing of nationalist and unionist parties including the DUP and Sinn Fein.
Mitchel McLaughlin of Sinn Fein said this decade was a significant opportunity to explore the past and to develop a shared future.
He said it would be regrettable if the potential for shared experience and understanding was lost.
He said his own party was open to marking the 1912 Ulster Covenant either through a shared event or having its own event.
This saw half a million unionists sign the Covenant opposing Home Rule for Ireland.
“When we have institutionalised power-sharing why wouldn’t we seize the opportunity to draw any positive lessons from that period?” Mr McLaughlin said.
Asked if he expected the first minister to take part in a 1916 Easter Rising commemoration, he said it would be a mistake to lay down conditions.
‘Contradictions’
The DUP’s Nelson McCausland said he had no problem taking part in a panel discussion on the 1916 rising as a means of promoting understanding.
“There’s a great deal of misunderstanding, many confusions, contradictions, complexities in our history and I think the decade gives us an opportunity to explore those and perhaps dispel some of the myths,” he said.
He said not all events would appeal to everyone and that some would have to be approached on an individual basis.
Both the DUP and Sinn Fein expressed concern that some would try to make mischief around these events.
The TUV’s Jim Allister, who is opposing the motion, is concerned that historic events will be distorted by the inclusion of republicans.
He also is pressing for a public holiday in September to mark Ulster Day.
Feminist writer Fionola Meredith said she hoped the centenary of female suffrage would not be squeezed out by the focus on unionism and nationalism.
“What so often happens in this country is that women’s rights, and interests come very low down the pecking order,” she said.
“So I would like to see some imaginative events that really recognise the significance of the suffrage campaign.
“(It) should be up at the top of the pile.”
BBC
16 Dec 2011
Republican protestors have smeared excrement on the doors and windows of the Alliance Party headquarters in south Belfast.
Earlier this year members of the Republican Network for Unity occupied the building in support of prisoners at Maghaberry.
The Alliance Party leader David Ford is also the Justice Minister.
The police say they are investigating an act of criminal damage at the building on University Street.
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