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Commenting on Paisley and Ahern’s visit to Ballymena, Cllr Mark Cosgrove, the UUP Trade and Tourism Spokesperson commented “As someone who predicated Paisleys political u turn several years before it actually happened, even I was astounded by the recent event in Ballymena between Paisley and Ahern. Why do we need a foreign politician to helicopter in to Northern Ireland to open a fantastic new facility? Is the first minister of Northern Ireland not now able to do anything without Sinn Fein or the Irish Governments involvement? Even using Sinn Feins language in referring to Northern Ireland as “the North of Ireland”. The so called “joke” about how he had previously snow balled a visiting Irish Premier did not make me laugh but instead think about the previous 40 years and the sheer wasted opportunities to create a normal society that he successfully scuppered. The speeches of intolerance, the polarisation of the Unionist people, the Lundy’s and the traitors. Now we find that non of these things were ever based on deep seated beliefs, however unpalatable they may have been to most secular Unionists. Having split Unionism, The Presbyterian Church and the Loyal Orders the events of the last few months have shown us all that we could have moved society on so many decades ago, and all it seems Paisley really cared about was getting to the top of the political ladder. The progressive forces within Unionism over those 4 decades can scarcely believe let alone understand all of this but the real losers were the long suffering people of Our Wee Country for whom real progress towards peace and stability could have commenced many, many years ago. Now isn’t that ironic, don’t you think ?”

Kenny Donaldson, an UUP Party Officer has expressed concern at the ‘increased terrorist threat’ posed by dissident republicans.
Kenny was responding to comments made by the Chief Constable yesterday when he said that; dissident republicans are inept but dangerous.
The Chief Constable indicated that Security was being stepped up across Northern Ireland in answer to the evolving security situation.
In a statement, Kenny said: “Last night, I travelled from Coleraine to my home at Crossmaglen and I was stopped on five occasions by Police check-points, it is clear that dissidents are planning further operations and I would ask the public to be patient and supportive of the efforts of the PSNI. Security check-points are designed to root out terrorist activity and the public must be prepared to experience some minor discomfort in the pursuit by our Police to crush terrorist activity at source.
“It is clear that there continues to be people within the community who have not understood or indeed, refuse to accept, the changed political and societal dispensation Northern Ireland has entered. There continue to be wreckers out there who are prepared to reap misery upon the Northern Ireland community.
“It is difficult to understand the mindset of those who wish to continue engaging in terror as a means of furthering ‘so-called political objectives.’ The reality is that the terror campaigns of their sister organisations before them were futile; they failed and achieved nothing but plunge this Country into civil strife.

“The Provisional Movement and its’ political leaders have immense responsibility in all of this. Sections of their ‘republican community have fractured’ and this has happened because they promised that community the ‘undeliverable for decades,’ they used physical force republicanism as a means of trying to overthrow the Northern Ireland State, that failed and they need to face up to this.
“Northern Ireland’s place within the Union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is now protected in International Law via the consent principle my Party, the UUP fought and won in the political settlement of The Belfast Agreement. It’s time people got real, it’s time people put their shoulder to the wheel in building Northern Ireland as a place where all people, irrespective of class or creed are given a quality of life which has been denied them previously, that should be the priority of all who claim to represent people,” concluded Kenny.

Ulster Unionist Party Parades spokesman Michael Copeland has described the latest Sinn Fein equality initiative as a ‘Trojan horse of known pedigree’ and the latest offensive in a long practised campaign of cultural warfare.

In a statement Mr Copeland said,

“If Sinn Fein truly care about equality they would do well to examine and comment on the disparity of treatment regarding the memory of the thousands of members of the security services who gave their lives generally at the hands republican terrorists, and who by so doing bought time for many of those currently involved in the Stormont administration to come to their senses.

All right thinking people must be seriously concerned at the £181 Million expended by the Bloody Sunday inquiry which equates to almost £13 Million per casualty. When this amount is balanced against the paltry sums expended to bring to justice those responsible for Bloody Friday, La Mon, Teebane and a whole host of other atrocities, many find it hard to stomach the fact that those who perpetuated by rhetoric on the one hand and by death and destruction on the other the thirty years of terror now appear to be calling the shots.”