Extracts from Jim Allister’s TUV Conference speech
17 November 2012
Speaking to the TUV Annual Conference in Cookstown Jim Allister said “the fact that even our opponents recognise the worth of the TUV contribution in the Assembly, demonstrates the growing relevance of the TUV message that government without opposition is not just absurd, but anti-democratic. By demonstrating the effect even a one man opposition can have we have pushed this issue of democratic deficit up the agenda, with others now increasingly conceding that the case for a democratic opposition is unanswerable. Only the vested interest of the DUP/Sinn Fein cabal stands in its way; the sooner the SDLP and UUP recognise they are but their doormats in government, rediscover their dignity and independence and step out to distinguish themselves in opposition, the sooner will this fundamental of democracy return to Stormont.”
Earlier in his speech Mr Allister had referred to the IRA murder of Prison Officer David Black from Cookstown as a brutal reminder of the savagery of terrorism “which came straight out of the IRA/Sinn Fein manual ‘Murder They Wrote’. This IRA murder was just as odious, just as hate-filled and just as deviant as those of their Provo blood brothers, for whom the reward was terrorists in government. Sinn Fein condemnations are meaningless so long as they fail to give up those their IRA trained who still practice their trade of murder – because the killers of David Black were no novices. Nor, have we heard anything of the weaponry. Why? Was it more of that which was supposedly decommissioned?
“I salute the Black family for having the strength and courage to cut through the hypocrisy and pretence by telling McGuinness and Sinn Fein to stay away from the funeral. There is a message there for those who day and daily clutch Sinn Fein to their bosom in government in Stormont. Tough words don’t cut it when contradicted by actions that live by the mantra ‘what Sinn Fein wants, Sinn Fein gets’ in Stormont.
“It is to oppose such that TUV exists…”
Mr Allister also lambasted the record of the Stormont Executive as one of “dismal failure, woeful squander and hopeless disconnect” from the needs of those they claim to govern. “Stormont is a joke – a bad joke.
“Bloated with 108 MLAs when half would be enough, 12 departments when 6 would do, waste beyond belief on 161 spin doctors, £5m on hospitality, £400,000 on photographers, an undisclosed sum on foreign travel and still £100m to squander on useless north-south bodies and £20m on a shrine at the Maze. Meanwhile, unemployment spirals upwards and all the DETI minister can assure us is that we’re not as bad as Dublin, to which nonetheless the Executive seeks to tie us ever closer, be in energy, trade or tourism. Since the DUP came to power there have been 133 official north-south ministerial meetings, while only a handful of face saving east-west get-togethers. And, just this week I unearthed that under this regime you the Northern Ireland taxpayer pay over £13m pa to give free education to students from the Republic of Ireland!
“TUV’s mission is unapologetically to be a thorn in the side of such miserable failing Sinn Fein/DUP government."
