UDA - UVF - Barandos - NSPCC... All the same... right? <shakes head>

The Department of Education has come under fire over a document seeming to
compare loyalist paramilitary groups to children's charities.

The UDA and UVF were described as "voluntary organisations" and bracketed with
Barnados and the NSPCC.

The document is a note of a meeting between a group of principals and senior
figures in the department.

Dolores Kelly (SDLP) said it was outrageous. The department there was a
"mistake" in drafting the minutes.

Ms Kelly, whose party has accused the department of "illegal sectarian
discrimination" through an action plan which allegedly favours Protestant
neighbourhoods for additional funding, said she was stunned.

"It beggars belief that anybody would compare the UDA and UVF with Barnardo's
and the NSPCC," she said.

"Indeed it beggars belief that the UDA and UVF would be asked to help contribute
to a plan to help children's education.

"It is, at the same time, ludicrous and insulting. "

The comparison was made in minutes of a meeting between school principals in
Protestant areas of north and west Belfast, the chief executive of the city's
education and library board and a deputy permanent secretary at the Department
of Education.

Called as part of Renewing Communities, the government's response to a taskforce
report on working-class Protestant communities, it lists a series of actions
needed to develop service delivery integration.

One point states: "Maintain/establish good working relationships with voluntary
organisations (Barnardo's, NSPCC, UDA, UVF)."

However, the Department of Education insisted any link arising from the meeting
last year was unintentional.

A spokesman said: "The Department of Education does not equate paramilitary
organisations with those doing excellent charity work; neither does the Belfast
Education and Library Board.

"The document referred to is a minute of a meeting which took place in June
2006. The minute reflects clumsily views expressed by those who reflections were
sought.

"There was no deliberate intention from anyone to equate voluntary organisations
with paramilitary bodies. This is a mistake in the drafting of the minutes."

However, Ms Kelly has vowed to take the matter further.

"The SDLP will be writing to the minister for education seeking an urgent
explanation for this ill-conceived and worrying plan," she said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/northern_ireland/6564867.stm

I'm so angry, I can't say what I might say...    But what say you?

Ray

-- 
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"We seem to have lost. We have not lost. To refuse to fight would have been to lose;
to fight is to win. We have kept faith with the past, and handed on a tradition to
the future." Padraig Pearse, at court-martial on day before his murder, May2,1916.
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Email  : rayh(removeSPAM)@iol.ie : Website: http://www.eirefirst.com
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date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:29:01 GMT author: WhiteWolf rayhspam@iol.ie