Speaking following yesterday’s special Belfast City Council meeting on the Bobby Sands statue, People Before Profit councillor Michael Collins said: “Memorials, archways, murals and bonfires go up across this city every year without planning permission - many commemorating paramilitary organisations - and the DUP hasn’t challenged a single one.”
“Bobby Sands is an internationally renowned figure of opposition to colonialism. Streets are named after him in Tehran and Paris, yet the DUP is attempting to remove a memorial for him in the very housing estate in which he lived, in an area where they have no support or elected representation.”
“This is not about planning law, otherwise it would be equally applied to paramilitary murals and monuments across the city. The DUP’s selective outrage is nothing but an attempt to sectarianise political discourse here in order to arrest their own electoral decline.”
“This motion would never have passed at Council, had so-called progressive parties like the SDLP not shown political cowardice by leaving the meeting early and refusing to vote. People Before Profit was proud to vote against this proposal. We have been on the doors, talking to the residents of Twinbrook. We've spoken to hundreds of residents as part of our Community Needs Assessment in the estate. Not one person raised any concern over planning permission for a statue. Instead, they talked about potholes, blocked drains, SEN places, waiting lists and a cost of living crisis that is pushing families to the edge.”
“The DUP want to denigrate political discourse here and polarise every discussion around questions of legacy and the past. This suits them and, by extension, their partners in the Executive, who dodge accountability for their systemic neglect of public services and their collective inaction to address the soaring cost of living. Meanwhile it is working class people on both sides of the divide who suffer the consequences.”