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Responding to Yesterday’s events where, a device exploded inside a ceremonial cannon near the cenotaph in Newry during a Remembrance Day service, Kenny Donaldson, Ulster Unionist Party Officer has branded those responsible, ‘fascists.’

In a statement, Kenny said: “Remembrance Day is about acknowledging the supreme sacrifice made by our Armed Forces in Wars and Conflicts, Past and present. There is irony in the fact that those who we remember gave their lives in the Great War and the Second World War so that we might be spared from Fascist rule.

“Yet, Yesterday’s actions in Newry are a chilling reminder that there remains within our midst, people who have absolutely no respect for the dead, they remain consumed with hatred and intolerance and practice actions, which are akin to those espoused by fascist dictators and their cohorts from the Past.

“The purpose of Yesterday’s attack was undoubtedly to disrupt the Remembrance Service, those responsible sought to instil fear within those attending.

“A history lesson or a trip down memory lane would probably reveal that the attackers’ Ancestors had family members, friends or acquaintances who fought in the very same Wars and Conflicts which people had gathered to commemorate.”

Concluding, Kenny said: “I would call on those with information as to the identity of the attackers to come forward with it to the Police. In our new political and societal dispensation, walls of silence must no longer be practiced, the community have a duty to root out the evil within their midst,” concluded Kenny.

Kenny Donaldson, Ulster Unionist Party Officer has expressed his deep sadness at learning of the death of John Fee.

In a statement, Kenny said: “I would like to pass on my sincerest sympathies to the Fee family circle at this traumatic time.

“Growing up in Crossmaglen, I always held the highest regard for John Fee, he was a man of courage, he told it as it was and often that meant political and personal sacrifices for him.

“John was a strong Nationalist, of that there has never been any doubt but his Nationalism was not of a type, which sought to dominate or eradicate Unionism. His politics were about ‘partnership and compromise.’

“John Fee accomplished alot in his 43 years on this earth and his passing is a loss to the community,” concluded Kenny.

Ulster Unionist Deputy Leader Danny Kennedy has tabled a motion in the Assembly that seeks support in opposing the recent eligibility proposal outline by FIFA that could mean players born in Northern Ireland can opt to play for the Irish Republic team.

Mr Kennedy’s motion reads:

“That this Assembly opposes the recent eligibility proposal outlined by FIFA;

Believes that it has the potential to cause serious harm to international soccer relations on the island of Ireland; and calls upon the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure to assist the Irish Football Association in opposing the ratification of this unfair and unjust proposal.”

In a statement Mr Kennedy said,

“I am hopeful that the business committee in the Assembly will fit this motion in at short notice. It is, I believe, an issue of high importance. The FIFA recommendation quite literally shifts the goalposts and places the very future of the Northern Ireland squad in jeopardy. FIFA should not be swayed by assertions about the Good Friday Agreement or subsequent agreements. The Constitutional position of Northern Ireland has been settled through the principle of consent.

Therefore we remain a separate national entity from the Irish Republic. Therefore there is no choice to be made. Players born in Northern Ireland should only play for Northern Ireland. Any changes to the current set up could effectively spell an end for the Northern Ireland squad. This is not something that I, or I believe a majority of people in Northern Ireland want. The Assembly can send a strong signal to FIFA and those advocates of this ill conceived proposal that they are barking up the wrong tree.”

Following DUP MLA Tom Buchanan’s decision to dismiss investment in our National Health Service as “simply tossing in more and more money”, UUP South Down MLA and Assembly Health Committee member John McCallister has called on Mr. Buchanan and his colleagues to stop undermining the NHS in Northern Ireland.

Mr. McCallister said, “DUP MLA Tom Buchanan has now joined his colleagues Iris Robinson, Alistair Ross, and Mervyn Story in defending the Finance Minister’s decision not to fund the NHS in Northern Ireland to UK levels. I had expected more of Mr. Buchanan as a fellow-member of the Health Committee. I had expected that he would have put our NHS first. Instead he smugly tells the public that our health services do not require investment – or, to use his own dismissive description of investment in the NHS, ‘simply tossing in more and more money’. Nor does Mr. Buchanan stop there. Instead of praising the professionalism and dedication of our hard-working health professionals, he talks about the ‘failings of the NHS’.

“Mr. Buchanan says that his party ‘wants to see the maximum resources directed towards health’. If this is so, why has the DUP Finance Minister refused to fund the NHS to UK levels? If this is so, why has the DUP Chair of the Health Committee taken upon herself the role of a cheerleader for the Finance Minister?

“The Appleby Report into Northern Ireland’s health services unequivocally demonstrated the need for increased investment in our NHS. Appleby said of Northern Ireland’s health services, ‘a significant increase in resources is required in the coming years’. The Finance Minister Peter Robinson, supported by Health Committee Chair Iris Robinson, disagrees: his Draft Budget fails to provide increased investment for our health services.

“The DUP’s stance on this issue – as with so many others – has radically changed in recent times. As recently as 2005, Iris Robinson was telling the House of Commons that ‘significant investment is required’ in Northern Ireland’s health service and that the DUP ‘advocate increased funding’. Now Tom Buchanan, presumably at the behest of the Finance Minister, is dismissing investment in our NHS as ‘simply tossing in more and more money’. Obviously some DUP u-turns – such as accepting power-sharing and the devolved institutions of the Belfast Agreement – have been very welcome, if over-due. A u-turn on the importance of investing in the NHS, however, is self-evidently not in the interests of Northern Ireland.”