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Following this week's Ard Comhairle meeting in Dublin, delegates welcomed the demise of unionist control in a number of key councils in the six counties.
"Nationalists are now in control of their own destinies" said the Irish Republican Socialist Party's West Tyrone delegate Willie Gallagher. "The opportunity now exists to redress seventy years of unionist misrule in local government. A recent European report conclusion that leisure facilities in North Belfast had been allocated on the basis of discrimination against the nationalist community can now be redressed. In other councils now with Nationalist majorities, huge unemployment, high levels of multi deprivation due to sectarian decisions by unionist bigots must be immediately tackled and overturned. The allocation of funds and provisions should and must be given solely on the basis of need rather than the perceived religious or political shade of the people living in that area. We also note with concern the current debate about which flag if any should fly at city hall, if this signals a return to the old sterile politics of Belfast under unionism then nothing has changed! The republican community did not return councillors to ape the worst accesses of unionism. The first decision the new Belfast City council should take is the building of a leisure centre to cater for the people of Ardoyne, Bone, Cliftonville, New Lodge and Ligoneil. In conclusion the IRSP Ard Comhairle believe that when these serious imbalances are redressed it is only then that the republican people will believe that change is possible in local government " |