Time for Unionists to get their slice of the Peace II cake!
01 September 2005
Policy Documents and Submissions
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Since my election as a member of the European Parliament I have expressed severe reservations about how money coming from the EU Programme for Peace and Reconciliation has been spent. During previous stages of the Peace programme (known as Peace I and Peace II); the Unionist Community has not been given what I consider our fair allocation of available resources. I want that to change. During the last twelve months, I have lobbied for fundamental alterations to the way in which the Peace Programme is administered and delivered on the ground.
In the past when I have raised my concerns about the under-funding of Protestant and/or Unionist areas, one of the stock responses that I receive runs as follows “if Unionists don’t apply for funding, they cannot complain when they don’t get it”. Now that the Peace II stage of the programme has been extended, it is vital that we remove this defence from those who would seek to deny our community their fair share of the funds available. To that end, it is vital that we see an increased rate of applications for funding coming in from groups that operate within the Unionist community.
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