Body that speaks for loyalist thugs doesn’t get veto on the life choices of children
Posted by Jim on September 30, 2024
Absurd for Paul Givan to meet LCC over Irish school … imagine outrage if Sinn Fein met with Saoradh to talk policy
Suzanne Breen
Yesterday at 08:00
A bunch of men representing other men involved in drug-dealing, intimidation and extortion tell a government minister that a school shouldn’t be built.
In any normal society, a group like the Loyalist Communities Council wouldn’t be entertained by those in power. If they somehow managed to wangle their way into a room, they’d be swiftly shown the door once it was established who they were. But, hey-ho, this is Northern Ireland, and we do things differently here.
There aren’t enough adjectives in the dictionary to convey how absurd it is that Paul Givan met LCC representatives to discuss any educational matter.
Under-achievement by working-class Protestant boys must be addressed, but the representatives of the UDA, UVF and Red Hand Commando aren’t the first people who spring to mind when the issue is on the agenda.
I must have missed all their expert research and papers on the subject over the years.
The LCC appears to have been emboldened after their audience with Givan. They contacted the media to reveal how they’d told the minister to halt plans to build an integrated Irish language school in east Belfast.
Here’s the reality that is as farcical as it is foolish: the hard men of loyalist paramilitarism feel ‘threatened’ by a few dozen kids between the ages of three and 11.
What will the youngsters hoping to start in Scoil na Seolta be doing? They’ll be learning to count. They’ll be singing the Alphabet Song. They’ll be dancing and painting and playing.
The older ones will be engaging in those dangerous activities of arithmetic, reading and learning a musical instrument. All this will be done through the medium of Irish. The only thing outrageous is that anybody objects to it.
Belfast City Council gave the green light for the temporary nursery, primary school and play area on the Montgomery Road in June.
Eleven councillors voted to grant planning permission and five — all DUP — voted against it.
The school is self-funding. It isn’t relying on a penny from the Department of Education. It has received over 100 expressions of interest from parents in recent weeks.
The LCC has no business sticking its nose in what Scoil na Seolta does or doesn’t do. It is not a legitimate stakeholder in educational matters.
Let’s imagine what would happen if a Sinn Fein minister did the equivalent of what a DUP minister did this week.
John O’Dowd meets Saoradh to discuss infrastructure issues, and the dissident republican group issues a statement afterwards advising him against the development of a part of the A5 project.
Caoimhe Archibald has a tete-a-tete on household rates with the political representatives of the New IRA who then tell the media which bills she shouldn’t be raising.
There would be absolute outrage from the DUP and its supporters if any Sinn Fein minister went down that path. Indeed, it could well place the very continuation of the power-sharing institutions under threat.
The LCC was set up almost a decade ago to assist loyalist paramilitaries to leave the stage. It has been an abject failure.
Far from disbanding and demobilising, recruitment has continued. These organisations still have thousands of members.
The DUP is sticking to its political guns on the LCC. East Belfast MLA David Brooks told the education committee he wouldn’t be apologising when unionists “are expected to sit in chambers with people from a republican background who have a history of violence”.
The key is that h-word: history. Brooks pointed to Sinn Fein MLAs Gerry Kelly and Pat Sheehan. Neither were choirboys during the conflict. But the IRA’s war is over three decades ago. Loyalist paramilitaries are active in the here and now.
I like and respect Paul Givan. He is the most capable member of the DUP’s Stormont team. In March, he engaged in his own bridge-building with a cèilidh and a cúpla focal at Irish medium primary school Gaelscoil Aodha Rua in Dungannon. Yet sometimes it feels like it’s one step forward and two back with the DUP.
Liaising with the LCC is not restricted to Givan. Edwin Poots — accompanied by Ian Paisley — met the loyalist organisation after becoming leader in June 2021. Arlene Foster had done the same four months earlier. Emma Little-Pengelly defended such meetings last year. Jeffrey Donaldson briefed the LCC on his deal to restore devolution in January.
The doors of some in high political office are open to the group, but it can’t be allowed to win on Scoil na Seolta. We all must show up for the kids, and stand against those who represent the thugs and bullyboys.