TUV challenges IRA/Sinn Fein immunity
30 March 2011
TUV has confirmed that in its meeting yesterday with the Chief Constable its Newry & Armagh candidate Barrie Halliday raised the participation of two Sinn Fein Stormont Ministers, McGuiness and Murphy, in an illegal parade in October 2010 in South Armagh.
In the context of a disparity in how Loyal Order parades are policed, as opposed to a blind eye approach to IRA/Sinn Fein events, TUV pressed the Chief Constable for action over the South Armagh event. The illegal parade was associated with the opening of a huge memorial to IRA terrorists who had met their just deserts during their reign of terror.
Commenting Barrie Halliday said, “We are fed a constant diet of how Sinn Fein now supposedly support law and order, yet here we have their top brass openly flouting the law and yet, in the present political climate, they are untouchable. That is wrong. No Orange leader would have immunity if they dared defy the law in Dunloy or Portadown, but when it comes to McGuiness not only is his past out of bounds for lawful investigation but his present actions also can be above the law and a blind eye is turned. We left the Chief Constable in no doubt that this is unacceptable.”
TUV Leader Jim Allister confirmed that TUV had also pressed the Chief Constable on why Martin McGuinness had never been questioned about many of the terrorist incidents associated with his reign as an IRA Commander. There was discussion about the unsolved atrocities in Claudy, Enniskillen and the savage murder of the census worker, Joanne Mathers, in Londonderry. “We expressly challenged the Chief Constable on what political constraints applied to investigating politically inconvenient crime. While he insisted no such constraints applied we pointed out that the inaction over these notorious incidents suggested otherwise.”
