Tag: Press Release

The press release issued by the DUP on 13 December 2022.

Commenting on reports that the report from Operation Kenova, set up to examine the role of IRA informer ‘Stakeknife’, could be extensively redacted, North Belfast DUP MLA Phillip Brett said.

“Whilst everyone will understand that issues impacting upon national security will need to be protected, a report shrouded in secrecy will not help us deal with the past in Northern Ireland.

Everyone should be equal under the law and equally subject to it. Any person who broke the law should be held accountable for their actions. This report should help shine a light on the activities of Stakeknife and ensure that families are given answers to some of the many questions they have.

It is no secret that Sinn Fein have most to fear about the publication of this report or indeed anything which delves into the security services and their use of agents in Northern Ireland. Their blushes however should not be a factor in any decision relating to the publication of this report.”

The press release issued by the DUP on 13 December 2022.

DUP North Antrim MP Ian Paisley has said the Prime Minister’s decision to pause the NI Protocol Bill’s progression is more related to internal Conservative Party politics than the chances of getting a fair, balanced and sustainable agreement in Brussels.

Mr Paisley said,

“The Protocol must be replaced by arrangements that Unionists can support. Whether that is achieved by the Protocol Bill or by negotiation is a matter for the Government however until the concerns of unionists are addressed, there will be no solid basis for functioning devolved government.

The Government cannot have powersharing and the Protocol at the same time. We tried to change the Protocol whilst operating Stormont but Brussels refused to even recognise our concerns.

The reported decision to stall the Protocol Bill may be spun as “giving talks a chance” but I suspect it is more to do with Conservative Party politics and wrecking amendments in the Lords.

Those who seek to derail and delay the Protocol Bill must realise that they are delaying devolution. Indeed, derailing the Bill significantly weakens the UK negotiating position.

The Government must face up to the fact that only decisive action on its part will work for unionism.”

The press release issued by the DUP on 12 December 2022.

East Belfast MP Gavin Robinson has said that Sinn Fein do not and will never have the authority to sit in judgement and decide who it was OK for the IRA to murder. His comments follow an interview where Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald said the IRA should not have harmed any member of the Garda.

He also said there was a link between Sinn Fein’s attempts to sanitise and justify IRA violence and recent incidents of sectarian behaviour including phrases like “Up the RA”.

The DUP MP said, “By singling out Garda officers, the Sinn Fein President not only casts a de facto judgement on the murder of police officers in Northern Ireland, but on everyone else targeted by the Provisional IRA. Michelle O’Neill has told us in the past that there is no hierarchy of victims, yet we see a very clear hierarchy within Sinn Fein’s own warped ideology. The blunt fact is that Sinn Fein do not and will never have the authority to sit in judgement and decide who it was ok for the IRA to murder and who it was not.

These comments all emanate from Sinn Fein’s determination to gaslight us all into believing their violence was different; that their gangsterism was justified and that their murder can be celebrated. Just as there is no difference between Dublin gangsters and the Provisional IRA there is also no difference between dissident republicans throwing a Christmas party to celebrate the attempted murder of two police officers and Sinn Fein holding events which celebrate individuals whose only ‘contribution’ to society was to engage in the very same type of attacks on RUC officers or others.

Mary Lou McDonald may claim not to be the author of history, but she and her colleagues are feverishly attempting to be the authors of freshly rewritten history. It is unclear whether Sinn Fein are using recent incidents relating to phrases like “Up the Ra” as cover for stepping up their rhetoric attempting to sanitise and justify IRA violence, or whether people feel the words and actions of Sinn Fein give them cover for their offensive, sectarian behaviour. What cannot be avoided however is the increase in both of these over recent months.”

The press release issued by the DUP on 11 December 2022.

Below is the text of a letter sent by DUP Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on Friday.

Dear Secretary of State,

It is 709 days since the Conservative Government passed legislation in the House of Commons which abandoned Northern Ireland into the clutches of the Northern Ireland Protocol. That Protocol has, as we warned at its conception, undermined the institutions flowing from the Belfast and successor Agreements. Rather than expending energy targeting the DUP, the Government would be better to focus on replacing the Protocol with arrangements that unionists and nationalists can support.

His Majesty’s Treasury has confirmed to my colleague Gregory Campbell MP that the Trader Support Service, established to help companies deal with NI Protocol generated paperwork, has cost the taxpayer £318.7 million. That’s £436k per day or £18k per hour. That £436k per day could employ more than ten highly experienced full-time nurses in Northern Ireland for a year.

This means that whilst you as Secretary of State talk about protecting our public services including health, the Protocol related paperwork costs the salary of more than 10 highly experienced nurses every single day.

Whilst I understand the steps you have taken with regard to MLAs’ salaries, I do not understand why the Government has delayed the vital £600 energy support payments to people in Northern Ireland by making fundamental changes to the scheme in the mouth of Christmas.

A number of government ministers, including the former Prime Minister, had stated clearly that the payments would be made to households in Northern Ireland in November. The energy companies were completing their preparations to facilitate the payments last month until the Government moved the goal posts and demanded a “cash-out” option which a previous HMG Minister had said was not required nor wanted.

Rather than trying to deflect blame onto the DUP for this delay, would it not be better for the Government to fully explain the rationale behind the decision to change the scheme at this late stage so that at least people can understand what is happening and why the payments are delayed?

Following the restoration of devolution in early 2020, we operated Stormont for two years and despite no unionist MLAs supporting the Protocol our concerns were not addressed. I warned the then Prime Minister on 1 July 2021 that the Protocol and devolution were not compatible. I repeated that warning on 9 September 2021 and we withdrew our First Minister on 3rd February 2022 because our warnings had resulted in no real or decisive action by the Government to deal with the Protocol.

We were forced to stop operating the institutions to bring matters to a head. I regret that it took such decisive action on our part to make people accept there was a problem. I am however glad that people in Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the Alliance Party as well as Dublin and Brussels now no longer talk about ‘rigorous implementation’ of the Protocol. They accept there are problems but we now need a solution that unionists can also support.

Unionists will not be bullied or cajoled. There is no solid basis for an Executive and Assembly until the Protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore NI’s place in the U.K. Internal Market and our constitutional arrangements are respected. The Government need to deliver that either through the Protocol Bill or through negotiations which deliver a similar outcome.

The Government and the EU have been aware of our consistent position regarding the sustainability of Stormont for almost two years. That time has been squandered. Whilst the EU must bear primary responsibility as a result of their inflexible negotiating mandate, successive Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State have not succeeded in addressing the problem either. Rather than being at loggerheads, I hope that you and I can work together during your term of office to find the solution.

That will require a change of attitude on the part of some in the Northern Ireland Office who seem to have forgotten that political progress in NI was hard won and is built on the support of unionists and nationalists. Not one unionist MLA or MP supports the Protocol. The idea that one section of our people will dominate the other and ignore the concerns of unionists will never produce durable or balanced outcomes.

To any neutral observer, devolution and the Protocol were never going to be compatible.

Indeed, on a practical level, every day Northern Ireland is subjected to some new Protocol problem that bedevils a business or a consumer.

We must remember all these problems are at a time when only a fraction of the Protocol is implemented. Large swaths of the Protocol are negated by the operation of grace periods either with or without the consent of both sides. These grace periods are ensuring we have food on our shelves and medicines in our hospitals.

Replacing the Protocol is not a unionist question or a nationalist question.

At a time when households and businesses can least afford it, haulage costs between GB and Northern Ireland have risen by nearly 30% as a direct result of the Protocol.

Under the Protocol, there is a 25% tariff on the steel used to build our schools, roads, hospitals, and houses if the steel comes from Great Britain.

The trade friction between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is fuelling the cost-of-living crisis locally as well as restricting consumer choice.

But we must also consider the constitutional challenge as the Protocol represents an existential threat to the future of Northern Ireland’s place within the Union. It must be replaced by arrangements that fully protect and restore Northern Ireland’s place within the UK Internal Market as promised by the Government in the New Decade New Approach Agreement.

We welcomed and supported the introduction of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill at Westminster. If fully enacted, this legislation has the potential to provide the solution that will free Northern Ireland from the grip of the Protocol and restore our rights as British citizens to trade freely with the rest of our own nation under Article 6 of the Acts of Union. But its progress is tediously slow.

In 119 days, people in London, Belfast, Dublin and Washington will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement. Let’s be clear, if the Protocol and it’s trade suffocating measures are not replaced with new arrangements that both unionists and nationalists can support, then that date will come and go without a functioning government in Stormont.

I truly hope this can be avoided and we must all redouble our efforts to secure a credible solution.

Yours faithfully

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP

Leader

Democratic Unionist Party

The press release issued by the DUP on 9 December 2022.

North Antrim MP Ian Paisley has said that if Leo Varadkar wants to prioritise power sharing as Taoiseach then he must accept the toxic impact of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The DUP MP said, “Whilst power-sharing and the operation of the Assembly is a Strand One issue and is therefore a matter for the local parties and the United Kingdom Government, it does have an impact on North-South relations.

The Protocol should be used as a warning of the damage that can be imposed on power-sharing, even by something that was supposedly introduced to protect the Belfast Agreement. Community relations within Northern Ireland have been damaged, and North-South relations impacted too because of the Protocol, and also due to some of Leo Varakar’s own rhetoric and actions.

His forecasts that ‘troops could be back on the border’ came after previous use of a newspaper article in relation to the PIRA bombing of a customs post. These were all unhelpful and did nothing to stabilise power-sharing in Northern Ireland or improve cross-border relations.

If the incoming Taoiseach can help secure a solution to the Protocol which respects Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom and which can be supported by unionists as well as nationalists then devolution based on cross-community consensus can return in Northern Ireland. That would be a significantly better legacy for Leo Vardkar to leave from his next period as the Republic’s Prime Minister.”

The press release issued by the DUP on 9 December 2022.

The DUP’s lead Policing Board representative Trevor Clarke has reacted to the news that a probationary police officer repositioned after the PSNI operation on the anniversary of the Sean Graham atrocity has been completely vindicated by the Police Ombudsman.

Commenting, the South Antrim MLA said:

‘‘Having completing its investigation, the Police Ombudsman has found this officer to be entirely innocent of any wrongdoing. I welcome this outcome and hope it goes some way to affording the officer involved and his family the opportunity to rebuild their lives.

Equally, this development casts a dark shadow over the Chief Constable’s decision to take action against this officer within hours of the incident and without affording them the protection of due process. We shouldn’t forget that Simon Byrne used as the basis for his decision to reposition this vindicated officer the fact that he had personally reviewed body cam footage and adjudged the actions of officers to not be in keeping with the values of the PSNI. This sadly calls into question his professional judgement.

It is also clear that this case still has some distance to go. The Police Federation have sought leave to take a judicial review against the Chief Constable in respect of the lawfulness of the treatment of these two officers. In proceedings to date, submissions by legal counsel on behalf of the Chief Constable appear to suggest that political pressure, including by senior figures in Sinn Fein, had a bearing on the PSNI’s knee-jerk reaction to this operation.

Therefore is crucial that we establish all of the facts. Other innocent officers must not face the ignominy of their careers being put on hold and having their reputations trashed by unfair decisions taken by their employer in the heat of the moment. As we have said before, the public interest is not what Sinn Fein dictates it to be.

The Chief Constable also has a duty of care to his workforce. The suggestion that neither officers has been contacted, let alone provided access to aftercare, is a poor reflection on the PSNI and its commitment to staff health and wellbeing.

It is also concerning that the latest developments were capable of being broadcast in the mainstream media without first having been brought to, and discussed by, the Policing Board. The DUP will continue to press for fuller and more transparent scrutiny of these issues in the days ahead, whilst advocating for those officers affected to be provided with the practical support that they need.’’

The press release issued by the DUP on 8 December 2022.

The DUP’s lead Policing Board representative Trevor Clarke MLA has welcomed an assurance from the Chief Constable that there are no plans to withdraw personal protection firearms from police officers in Northern Ireland.

Commenting after raising the issue at Thursday’s meeting of the Policing Board, Trevor Clarke said:

‘‘The upsurge in dissident republican activity in recent weeks highlights exactly why police officers in Northern Ireland should continue to carry weapons for their personal protection.

These groups have demonstrated both the intent and the capabilities to murder and maim. Therefore it would be entirely reckless to leave officers as sitting ducks against such a threat.

The security situation in Northern Ireland is far from normal. The current ‘substantial’ terror threat means an attack is likely and might occur without warning. Ensuring officers have recourse to protect themselves and respond to armed threats against the public is necessary and justified.

Those who claim that the challenges facing PSNI officers is somehow on a par with their counterparts in other regions of the United Kingdom, are living in a fool’s paradise. In this context, I welcome the Chief Constable’s assurance that there are no plans to change the status quo.

The DUP is clear that evidence-based protections for officers must not be cast aside for political expediency.’

The press release issued by the DUP on 8 December 2022.

The DUP’s Upper Bann MLA Diane Dodds has reminded the Secretary of State that the reason the NI Assembly and Executive is not functioning is because of the Protocol imposed by his Government.

Mrs Dodds said,

“The Secretary of State is gravely mistaken if he thinks adjusting MLA pay and erecting delays to energy payments will lead to a restoration of devolution.

There is no solid basis for an Executive and Assembly until the Protocol is replaced with arrangements that restore NI’s place in the U.K. internal market and our constitutional arrangements are respected. The Government need to deliver that either through the Bill or through negotiations which deliver a similar outcome.

The Government and the EU have been aware of our consistent position regarding the sustainability of Stormont since February 2021. Successive Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State have squandered that time rather than addressing the problem.

For those who have forgotten, political progress in NI was hard won and is built on the support of unionists and nationalists. Not one unionist MLA supports the Protocol. The idea that one section of our people will dominate the other and ignore unionists can never produce durable or balanced outcomes.”