What has EU Task Force actually delivered, asks Allister
08 December 2010
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister:-
“As the Joint First Ministers head to Brussels, grandly talking about renewing ‘our commitment to the EU task force’, it is appropriate to ask just what has the task force produced for Northern Ireland? Apart from advancing the project for an IRA shrine at the Maze, what has the task force actually done? Could someone publish an audit of its activities and achievements, rather than talking euphemistically about its ‘success’?
"As I said at the time of its publication the task force missed the opportunity to address meaningful issues, like additionality, but instead amounted to lots of words signifying very little, and certainly no new funding streams.
“Nonetheless the Joint First Ministers will parade themselves in Brussels this week with President Barroso as if the task force had made a real difference to Northern Ireland. In truth it has not. Like the Executive itself it has very little to show for its four years existence.
“I must also comment on the overtly pro-EU language of the OFMDFM statement. There was a time the Leader of the supposedly eurosceptic DUP would not have been talking approvingly about the opportunities presented by EU membership, but pointing out the folly and waste of trading billions per annum of British taxpayers money for the stranglehold of Brussels control and bureaucracy. But, then, these are indeed changed times for the DUP."
