Why is Paisley running away?
01 March 2008
On 6th August 2007 I wrote to the First Minister asking for a meeting with him to discuss European issues, for which his office has responsibilities. My letter was neither acknowledged nor answered, so I sent a reminder. It too went unacknowledged and unanswered.
On 27th January 2008 an Assembly Member tabled a written question to OFMDFM asking what contact there had been with the MEPs. Clearly, in order to save their blushes and so that they could include a reference in the answer, OFMDFM suddenly on 29th January 2008 replied to my letter of 6th August 2007, supposedly offering a meeting and saying “Our office will contact you to work out a way forward”. Here we are a full month later and no contact has been made by OFMDFM. Clearly, their letter was wholly disingenuous.
As I made clear in my letter of 6th August 2007 my request is to meet the First Minister and I will not countenance a meeting including Sinn Fein. As I expressed it to Ian Paisley in that letter, “For reasons of principle, which you once espoused yourself, I do not meet or speak with IRA/Sinn Fein. Thus, I make it plain that I will not attend any meeting at which your deputy, or Junior Minister Kelly, are present or represented.”
As an elected MEP I believe it is important that I should have the cooperation of the First Minister and should be entitled to meet with him in the interests of Northern Ireland in Europe. Sadly, for his own reasons, he continues to run away and deny the opportunity for such a meeting. The public can draw their own conclusions. Under Direct Rule it never took me 8 weeks, never mind 8 months, to get a meeting with a Minister.”
