COSGROVE COMMENTS ON PAISLEY-AHERN BALLYMENA VISIT
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 ?”