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Reform will intensify NI divide, say critics

February 17, 2011

By Staff Reporter

SDLP councilors have slammed the reform in similar term, but Sinn Fein, which supports it, has suspended the mayor of Dungannon for saying it would not help reconciliation in the North.
Unionists fear the three western councils, where nationalists would have an in-built majority, would embark on more cross-border links making them semi-detached from the Northern state.
Three other councils in the East would have in-built unionist majorities and the seventh, Belfast, would be almost equally nationalist and unionist. The plans also involve cutting the number of councilors from 600 to 350.
An alternative 15 council-model, favored by the SDLP and unionists, would have left nine councils in unionist hands and six in nationalist control. Only Sinn Fein supports the seven-council model, which opponents claim will “balkanize” the North by creating a new border along the River Lagan dividing West and East.
Sinn Fein said, however, that the plan is fair as in none of the councils will a minority represent less than 25 percent, whereas in some existing councils minorities can be as low as less than 10 percent.
The DUP assembly member, Peter Weir, said his party believed the British government didn’t care if its plans amounted to re-partition. He said there was a “suspicion that the province is being redrawn to suit a different agenda.”
Meanwhile, a single health authority will replace the four health boards and a single education authority will replace the five education boards, which serve the North.
Sinn Fein’s longest-serving councilor and the current mayor of Dungannon, Francie Molloy, was suspended from the party after he spoke out against the seven council model.
Molloy said the new boundaries amounted to a sectarian headcount and he had not become involved in the civil rights movement over 30 years ago to support that. He also said the proposals would not build reconciliation between the two communities.
Party general secretary, Mitchel McLaughlin, however, said the party’s internal decision-making processes had decided on a policy and that the disciplinary proceedings against Molloy would be transparent and democratic.
SDLP councilor in Coleraine, John Dallat, was just one of many in that party who spoke out against the proposed seven “super councils.” He said the reduction amounted to “compressed sectarianism.”
North Antrim assembly member, Se_n Farren, said the proposals made a nonsense of local decision-making and put “so-called efficiency before community relations.”
The protections promised against abuse, he said, may well prevent significant violations “but these protections will not be able to prevent councils acquiring the particular character of the majority and create a situation less welcoming to the minority.”
“This cannot be good for community relations and could well accelerate demographic movement which would in turn lead to fewer mixed community areas across Northern Ireland,” said Farren.
“This is the result of putting the so-called quest for efficiency and effectiveness above the need to create more harmonious community relations and democratic accountability.
“[Northern Secretary Peter] Hain and his team seem, in the style of a colonial government, determined to teach the natives a lesson. The SDLP will campaign within the Assembly when it is restored for the rejection of these proposals”, said Farren.
Sinn F

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