THE ALLIANCE Party’s ruling council was meeting in Antrim last night as part of the process to have party leader David Ford formally nominated in the Assembly next month for the post of the North’s minister of justice.
Over recent days progress was made on agreeing a strategy to tackle sectarianism in Northern Ireland intended to pave the way for Mr Ford to be put forward to take the justice position.
On Tuesday First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness agreed a consultation paper on a “shared future” for Northern Ireland that will be put to the public in the coming months.
Mr Ford has been favourite for several months now to take the justice portfolio but he said his party would only nominate if there were progress on agreeing a “cohesion, sharing and integration” strategy for the North. He also sought more clarity on how the Department of Justice would operate.
Mr Ford indicated that the agreement on tackling sectarianism was meeting the Alliance concerns while there was also progress on how the department would function.
“Making progress on building a united community is vital for the future of Northern Ireland and is Alliance’s number one priority. The creation of a shared future is also central to the smooth delivery of policing and justice,” said Mr Ford.
He said the Robinson-McGuinness document on a shared future was a “positive step forward for everyone in Northern Ireland” but what was crucial was delivery.
Mr Ford said that he was sufficiently happy with progress to give the green light for last night’s Alliance council meeting to formally discuss nominating him.
The new minister of justice is due to be nominated in the Assembly on March 9th with formal appointment on April 12th.
Meanwhile, the DUP-Sinn Féin Assembly working party charged with revamping the current system for dealing with contentious parades has met its Hillsborough Agreement deadline for putting its proposals to Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness.
The group of three DUP and three Sinn Féin MLAs presented their findings to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister on Tuesday night.
These proposals are due to be brought before other members of the Executive ahead of the next stage which is to begin drafting new parading legislation. A new Act on parading is scheduled to be completed by mid-December.
Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness said last week that the working group’s proposals would not be published at this stage, leading to complaints of secrecy from the SDLP and the Ulster Unionist Party.
SDLP policing spokesman Alex Attwood said the working group on parading should publish the results of its work without delay. “Failure to publish the parading document agreed in secret between the two parties does nothing to reassure the communities directly affected,” he said.
Ulster Unionist MLA David McNarry said the refusal to publish raised suspicions with people inevitably asking “are they hiding something . . ?”
Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice party, accused the DUP and Sinn Féin of treating the public with contempt.