By Patrick Markey
An equality office set up as part of the new Northern Ireland government would likely be led by a representative of the nationalist community and would ensure fair treatment and equal opportunity to both communities in the province, First Minister David Trimble announced last weekend.
The Unionist leader’s remarks came during his speech at a New York conference on equality in Northern Ireland, where politicians, academics and activists engaged in often frank discussion on legal, economic and political issues.
But the debate was also tinted by a symbolism usually reserved for political meetings in Derry and Belfast, when a representative of the Rev. Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party refused to share a table with a speaker from a Catholic resident’s group.
During his speech, Trimble said that under the Good Friday agreement an Equality Unit will be established to "promote equality of opportunity and to eliminate unlawful discrimination." The equality office and the issue of fair employment have been heart of nationalist concerns over the new government’s policies to deal employment discrimination. A junior minister appointed to head the unit should come from Seamus Mallon’s SDLP, Trimble said.
"My own preference is that that junior minister should come from his party," the first minister said.
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The equality unit would operate out of the office of the first minister and deputy first minister to build confidence so each community would feel it receives fair treatment. The unit would act in a supervisory role monitoring policies, Trimble said.
Touching on the problem of unemployment, Trimble said, he is committed to dealing with the jobless in both Catholic and Protestant communities. That meant regenerating communities and creating jobs, he said.
But the thorny question of decommissioning was never far. Private armies and private arsenals posed a threat to the spirit and to the letter of the Good Friday Agreement, Trimble said. All parties had indicated their commitment to the total disarmament of paramilitary organizations, and that there was a linkage between taking office and decommissioning, he said.
"We ask that they deliver now on the commitment that was made in the Belfast agreement," he said. "It needs to happen and it needs to happen soon."
For the most part debate at the conference, held over two days Seton Hall University and in Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, was a positive, healthy exchange of ideas, participants said. The event was the latest in a series organized by New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi.
"This is a very unique situation. This couldn’t have happened a few years ago with the DUP, Sinn Fein and people like myself from a loyalist background sitting down together talking about issues that affect us all," said Sammy Douglas, who runs the Greater East Belfast Partnership, an economic development board chaired by local politicians and businessmen.
Sinn Fein representative Bairbre de Brun agreed. There was serious dialogue, she said, where representatives from both communities addressed the same audience on the same issues.
"We need more like them," she said.
But in any discussion about Northern Ireland’s contentious political situation, controversy is often not far behind. Last weekend’s conference was no exception.
DUP protest
Before Saturday’s debates started, DUP representative Gregory Campbell refused to share a table with Gerard Rice, of the Lower Ormeau Residents Action Group, because of Rice’s past "terrorist convictions."
Portraying the difficulties of the unionist community, Campbell meet with disapproving heckles from a section of the audience when he described the educational and employment disadvantages faced by his constituents.
"We are disadvantaged in education. We are disadvantaged in jobs," he said.
Campbell also questioned what he called the "double standard," that had heeded nationalist opposition but did not acknowledge unionist opposition to the Good Friday document. There was a need for more dialogue so the two communities could live together in agreement, he said.
Rather than his views, it was his refusal to sit with Rice that evoked the more fiery response. Asked why he wouldn’t sit with Rice, the alderman said he would not legitimize terrorism. Without referring to Rice directly, he said, "I think you would get your best answer by looking at the terrorist convictions of one member of the panel." Rice had served a prison sentence for IRA-related activities.
Taking to the podium, Rice put a positive spin on his fellow panel member’s remarks. At least the situation had changed for the better. Years before, Rice said, the alderman would not have sat in the same room as him, and would not have even stayed to listen.