Bombshell revelation at Stormont. Allister exposes plan to rob Prison Service of Royal connections
16 November 2011
Statement by TUV Leader Jim Allister MLA:-
“The revelation tonight in the Assembly – on foot of my probing – that the Justice Minister anticipates dropping the Crown from the symbol of the Prison Service and ceasing to call prisons ‘Her Majesty’s Prisons’, is an utterly unacceptable sop to IRA/Sinn Fein, which I am happy to have exposed.
“It is clear that as part of an agreed stratagem these decisions will be falsely passed off as ‘operational matters’ for the Prison Service. They are not operational matters, but are strategic decisions which go to the very heart of the ethos and status of the Prison Service.
“Just as with the RUC in the past, it is now clear that a plan is afoot to change both name and badge of the Prison Service. What a calculated insult to the many brave prison officers who gave their lives in the service at the hands of IRA terrorism. Having lived through the humiliation and destruction of the RUC, I trust the wider unionist community will determine that the same will not be permitted to happen to the prison service.
“When the RUC was so destroyed, the DUP blamed the UUP. Well now, the challenge to today’s lead party of unionism is to stop this sell out. They can do so by blocking every facet of the proposed prison reform which needs Assembly and Executive approval till these insulting changes are abandoned. My challenge tonight to the DUP is that they pledge to do so.
“Also, since the prison reform package is the product of the Hillsborough Agreement, the public is entitled to know if such changes were ever mooted or even acquiesced in? Indeed, before agreeing to a review of the Prison Service at Hillsborough, the DUP could have ring-fenced the title and badge from alteration. But, it seems that was not done.
“I am surprised that it took the probing of this mere backbencher to unearth this plan. Having exposed it, now every unionist should rally to oppose it. I trust they will.”
