Below is the text of a speech made by TUV leader Jim Allister during today’s Assembly debate on the Maze.

The issue that I start with is that the huge transformation that we have seen in the DUP position is, of course, driven by a philosophy that says, “We must keep Sinn Féin happy if we are to keep our jobs”. A few years ago, the stadium proposition was utterly rejected because it was tainted by the ugly buildings that made up the prison at the Maze and by the fear that they would become a shrine that would brand and taint the entire proposition. The stadium was rejected by many on that basis. Today, however, we have reached the point where not only can the DUP accept the buildings remaining that they but be an integral part of the proposition.

If branding and blighting was an issue for the stadium, how much more is it, inevitably, an issue for the conflict resolution centre? If we need a conflict resolution centre, why do we need to put it somewhere where it will be blighted and branded? The answer, of course, is that Sinn Féin will not support it anywhere else. That is why, in the rolling over to the Sinn Féin demand, we have the scenario that, therefore, it will be agreed that it will be at the Maze.

Therefore, it will incorporate the very buildings that will be the shrine and which caused the deputy leader of the DUP to rightfully say, “However it is dressed up,” — and, my oh my, it has been well dressed up today — “whatever spin is deployed,” — and the spin that has been deployed today has been dizzying — “the preservation of a section of the H-Blocks — including the hospital wing — would become a shrine to the terrorists who committed suicide in the Maze in the 1980s. That would be obnoxious to the vast majority of people and is something unionist people cannot accept.”

Nigel Dodds was right then and he is right now. The Members, whose deputy leader he is, must, inevitably, be saying that he is wrong.

I agreed with him entirely when he said that. Was Nigel Dodds wrong? Is he wrong, or was he right? Members on the DUP Benches know in their hearts that he was right.

Yet, as in so much, for the sake of accepting what Sinn Féin demands, they are prepared to roll over on the issue and to blight and brand a worthwhile project of development at the Maze with this, because they are anticipating the utterly unnecessary retention of the buildings. Three DUP Environment Ministers could have delisted those buildings, had them demolished and neutralised the site. Instead, they kept it contaminated, and it is the keeping of it contaminated that brands the proposition for a conflict resolution centre and destroys the worth that is in that proposition. If there is a need for one, why does it have to be at the Maze?

Mr A Maginness: Does the Member agree that, given that we have come out of a period of deep violence and conflict, there is a need for some sort of mechanism in our society and some sort of site that can bring about a lasting peace and build confidence and reconciliation in our community? I know that the Member objects to the site at Maze/Long Kesh, but does he accept the concept?